Len Deighton
Len Deighton is a prominent English novelist, celebrated primarily for his contributions to the spy fiction genre. Born in Marylebone, London, and having served in the Royal Air Force during World War II, Deighton’s experiences in photography, weaponry, and aviation have greatly influenced his writing. He gained fame with his debut novel, *The Ipcress File*, published in 1962, which introduced a working-class espionage agent and became well-received by both readers and critics. This novel was followed by a series featuring a similar protagonist, later named Harry Palmer in film adaptations.
Deighton’s works often incorporate intricate technical details and a cynical perspective on politics and class, reflecting the espionage scandals of the mid-20th century. In addition to spy novels, he has authored non-fiction, including works on World War II, and has explored various other genres throughout his career. Notable novels include *Funeral in Berlin* and *Berlin Game*, which are recognized for their depth and realism. While Deighton has enjoyed a successful literary career, including cookbooks and short stories, he has recently entered a self-imposed retirement, though he continues to write privately. His influence and relevance in literature are expected to endure, with a significant body of work that showcases a distinctive narrative style.
Len Deighton
Author
- Born: February 18, 1929
- Place of Birth: London, England
ENGLISH NOVELIST
Biography
Leonard Cyril Deighton is regarded as one of his generation's most accomplished spy novelists. However, his talents and varied interests have frequently led him beyond the genre and beyond fiction as well. The son of a cook and a chauffeur, he was born and grew up in the London district of Marylebone. During World War II, he served in the Royal Air Force, developing skills in photography, weaponry, aviation, and diving—exacting fields, the details of which he would later draw upon in his writings. After the war, Deighton attended St. Martin’s School of Art and the Royal College of Art, both in London, and began a successful career as a commercial artist in London and New York. He has also been employed in several other fields, traveling widely, for instance, as an airline steward and working briefly as an assistant pastry chef. He and fellow illustrator Shirley Thompson were married in 1960.
Aside from an unpublished description of life as he found it in the United States, The Ipcress File was Deighton’s first piece of writing and marked an auspicious beginning to a prolific career. Deighton had begun the novel as a lark on vacation in France in 1960, finishing it the following year on another vacation. A chance conversation with a literary agent led to the manuscript being submitted to several publishers, with publication in 1962. The novel features an irreverent espionage agent of a working-class background caught up in a series of dangerous and dauntingly complex events. It proved highly popular with the public and most critics, although one of the latter complained that the story read as if every other chapter had been deleted.
Deighton followed The Ipcress File with seven other novels featuring essentially the same protagonist, though he is usually unnamed, and his characteristics change from time to time. (When several of the novels were adapted for a popular series of films starring Michael Caine, the character was given the name “Harry Palmer.”) Funeral in Berlin (1964) and Yesterday’s Spy (1975) are usually named as being the most successful of this series. All illustrate Deighton’s attention to the technical details of surveillance, information gathering, and so on—an emphasis that Deighton contrasts ironically with his characters’ inability to determine the “truth” about any particular situation or even communicate clearly with one another. Appendices and footnotes buttress their seeming factuality. All display a cynical attitude toward the British class system and politics in general, an attitude born of revelations in the 1950s and 1960s that well-placed members of the British espionage system, such as Harold “Kim” Philby, were actually Soviet agents. Deighton’s books were so successful that he was eventually forced for tax purposes to spend much of the year outside Britain, establishing residences in California and Ireland as well as in London.
Deighton has also published nonfiction throughout his career. From 1962 through 1966, he prepared illustrated “cookstrips” for the British weekly Observer, eventually incorporating them into his first two cookbooks. Deighton has also written extensively about World War II, on which he is a recognized authority. His books Fighter (1977) and Blood, Tears, and Folly (1993) are notable (and in some quarters moderately controversial) for their evenhanded treatment of German and British viewpoints, and the former drew the praise of prominent historian A. J. P. Taylor.
Deighton’s interest in World War II and Germany is also reflected in his fiction, beginning with Funeral in Berlin (1964) and continuing with Bomber (1970), which tells the story of an allied bombing mission gone terribly wrong. In SS-GB (1978), he imagined in somber, convincing detail a Great Britain vanquished by Nazi Germany. Berlin Game (1983) heralded the beginning of a new series of novels—eventually encompassing three trilogies—about British spy Bernard Samson, a more sophisticated, realistic version of Deighton’s earlier nameless protagonist. Deighton’s Winter (1987), a lengthy historical novel about the contemporary German experience that also explores the backgrounds of several characters, is the fourth novel in the Samson series, published between the Game, Set, Match trilogy and the Hook, Line, and Sinker trilogy. The final novel in the Faith, Hope, and Charity trilogy, and the last novel in the Samson series, Charity, was published in 1996.
Deighton has published several other books in the 1990s and 2000s. These include the novels Mamista (1991), City of Gold (1991), and Violent Ward (1994); a cookbook, Basic French Cookery Course (1990); and the e-book James Bond: My Long and Eventful Search for His Father (2012), which details Deighton's search for the origins of James Bond. Deighton also published a novella, “Sherlock Holmes and the Titanic Swindle,” in The Verdict of Us All (2006), a collection of stories from the Detection Club, and contributed to several other fiction and nonfiction publications. This novella was the last published work of the ninety-five-year-old, and the author has described himself as being in a self-imposed retirement from publishing. However, he has also stated that he continues to write privately. The Deighton Dossier, an Internet site containing a comprehensive resource of articles, interviews, and literary guides to his work, remains a valuable resource for individuals wishing to delve into the life and works of Deighton. Deighton's works are expected to remain relevant and popular well into the twenty-first century.
Although Len Deighton values technical accuracy, he has repeatedly asserted that his only goal is to entertain. At their best, his works display a terse, cinematic style reminiscent of the novels of Graham Greene. Drawing upon a tradition of realistic spy fiction pioneered by writers W. Somerset Maugham, Eric Ambler, and Greene, Deighton and his contemporary John le Carré have revolutionized the genre, distancing it from the lightweight James Bond thrillers of Ian Fleming. Although frequently compared to his disadvantage with le Carré, Deighton has produced at least two novels—Funeral in Berlin and Berlin Game—that rank among the very best of the genre. Among critics of speculative fiction, the grimly realistic SS-GB is regarded as a landmark work of “alternate history.”
Bibliography
Atkins, John. “Len Deighton: An Enigma.” The British Spy Novel: Styles in Treachery. New York: Riverrun, 1984.
Bloom, Harold, editor. “Len Deighton.” Modern Crime and Suspense Writers. New York: Chelsea, 1995.
Deighton, Len. "Interview with Len Deighton." Interview by Jake Kerridge. The Telegraph, 18 Feb. 2009.
The Deighton Dossier, www.deightondossier.net. Accessed 8 July 2024.
“Interview: Len Deighton Collects Outdated Travel Guides.” The New York Times, 22 June 2023, www.nytimes.com/2023/06/22/books/review/len-deighton-interview.html. Accessed 8 July 2024.
Jones, Dudley. “The Great Game? The Spy Fiction of Len Deighton.” Spy Thrillers: From Buchan to Le Carré. Edited by Clive Bloom. New York: St. Martin’s, 1990.
Kamm, Jürgen. “Berlin Wall and Cold-War Espionage: Visions of a Divided Germany in the Novels of Len Deighton.” The Berlin Wall. New York: Lang, 1996.
Merry, Bruce. The Special Branch: The British Spy Novel, 1890–1980. Bowling Green: Bowling Green State U Popular P, 1981.
Milward-Oliver, Edward. The Len Deighton Companion. London: Grafton, 1987.
Panek, LeRoy L. “Len Deighton.” The Special Branch: The British Spy Novel, 1890-1980. Bowling Green: Bowling Green U Popular P, 1981.
Powers, Alan. Front Cover: Great Book Jackets and Cover Design. 2001. London: Beazley, 2006.
Thorpe, Vanessa, et al. “Why Len Deighton's Spy Stories Are Set to Thrill a New Generation.” The Guardian, 3 May 2021, www.theguardian.com/books/2021/may/02/why-len-deightons-spy-stories-are-set-to-thrill-a-new-generation. Accessed 8 July 2024.
Whaley, Shane. “The Next Best Thing to a Len Deighton Biography.” Spybrary, 24 Feb. 2024, spybrary.com/len-deighton-biography. Accessed 8 July 2024.