Deighton, Len
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Wikipedia-Article "Len Deighton"
Leonard Cyril Deighton (born February 18, 1929, Marylebone, London) is a British historian and author of spy fiction and historical novels.
Several of his novels have been adapted for films. His first four novels featured an unnamed hero, which in the movie versions was dubbed "Harry Palmer" and was played by Michael Caine. The first trilogy of his Bernard Samson series was made into a 12-part television series by Granada Television and shown in 1988. He wrote the screenplay for the 1969 film of the play Oh! What a Lovely War. His 1970 World War II historical novel Bomber about an RAF Bomber Command raid over Germany is often considered his masterpiece.
His interest in spy stories may have been at least partially inspired by his seeing Anna Wolkoff, a British citizen of Russian descent who was a Nazi spy, arrested and charged for violating the Official Secrets Act on May 20, 1940. As she was put in the police car, her arrest was witnessed and made an impression on Deighton.
In 1949 Deighton began attending art school and in 1952 won a scholarship to the Royal College of Art, graduating in 1955. He then worked as an airline steward with BOAC. Before he began his writing career he worked as an illustrator in New York and, in 1960, as an art director in a London advertising agency. He has since used his drawing skills to illustrate a number of his own military history books.
Deighton has also published a series of cookery books and drew a weekly illustrated cooking guide in The Observer.
To cash in on the success of Deighton's first four "Harry Palmer" novels, he wrote Len Deighton's London Dossier (1967), a guide book to Swinging Sixties London with a "secret agent" theme — contributions from other writers are described as "surveillance reports".
Selected Bibliography
The Harry Palmer books
- The Ipcress File 1962
- Horse Under Water 1963
- Funeral in Berlin 1964
- Billion Dollar Brain 1966
The Bernard Samson Books:
- Berlin Game 1983
- Mexico Set 1984
- London Match 1985
- Spy Hook 1988
- Spy Line 1989
- Spy Sinker 1990
- Faith 1994
- Hope 1995
- Charity 1996
A prequel to the series, Winter, was written in 1987.
Others:
- An Expensive Place to Die 1967
- Len Deighton's London Dossier 1967
- Only When I Larf 1968
- Bomber 1970
- Declarations of War short story collection, 1971
- Close-Up 1972
- Spy Story 1974
- Yesterday's Spy 1975
- Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Spy 1976
- SS-GB, 1978
- XPD 1980
- Goodbye, Mickey Mouse 1982
- MAMista 1991
- City of Gold 1992
- Violent Ward 1993
History:
- Fighter: The True Story of the Battle of Britain 1977
- Airshipwreck, with Arnold Schwartzman, 1978
- Blitzkrieg: From the Rise of Hitler to the Fall of Dunkirk 1979
- Battle of Britain, with Max Hastings, 1980 ISBN 0224018264
- Blood, Tears and Folly: An Objective Look at World War II 1993