John le Carré bibliography explained

This is a list of works by or featuring David John Moore Cornwell, a British author better known by his pseudonym John le Carré. It also includes a list of film, television, and radio adaptations of le Carré's writing.

Novels

Year	Title	Identifier	Highest NYT position reached	Number of weeks on NYT list	Notes
1961	Call for the Dead		—	—
1962	A Murder of Quality		—	—
1963	The Spy Who Came in from the Cold		1	56	number one for most of 1964
1965	The Looking Glass War		5	14 - 16	weeks uncertain due to NYT strike
1968	A Small Town in Germany		2	28
1971	The Naïve and Sentimental Lover		10	2
1974	Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy		1	40
1977	The Honourable Schoolboy		3	33
1979	Smiley's People		1	28
1983	The Little Drummer Girl		1	34
1986	A Perfect Spy		1	22
1989	The Russia House		1	21
1990	The Secret Pilgrim		1	12
1993	The Night Manager		3	13
1995	Our Game		2	9
1996	The Tailor of Panama		7	7
1999	Single & Single		3	7
2001	The Constant Gardener		4	9
2003	Absolute Friends		3	9
2006	The Mission Song		3	3
2008	A Most Wanted Man		4	4
2010	Our Kind of Traitor		7	3
2013	A Delicate Truth		6	4
2017	A Legacy of Spies	^[1]	1	6
2019	Agent Running in the Field		5	1
2021	Silverview		6	3	posthumous

Source: The New York Times Best Seller list^[2] Figures are for the Adult Hardcover Fiction lists, 1961 through 2021: highest position reached and total number of weeks on list (possibly nonconsecutive). A "—" indicates it did not make the list. Note that the Times list consisted of a Top 10 from 1963 through 1976, but a Top 15 or 16 in the covered years before and after.

George Smiley omnibus volumes

• The Incongruous Spy (1964), containing Call for the Dead and A Murder of Quality,
• The Quest for Karla (1982), containing Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, The Honourable Schoolboy and Smiley's People (republished in 1995 as Smiley Versus Karla in the UK; and John Le Carré: Three Complete Novels in the U.S.),

Short stories

• "Dare I Weep, Dare I Mourn?" (1967), in Saturday Evening Post, 28 January 1967
• "What Ritual is Being Observed Tonight?" (1968), in Saturday Evening Post, 2 November 1968^[3]
• "The Writer and the Horse" (published in the US as "A Writer and A Gentleman") (1968), in The Savile Club Centenary Magazine and later in The Argosy and The Saturday Review (November 30, 1968)^[4]
• "The King Who Never Spoke" (2009), in Ox-Tales: Fire, 2 July 2009^[5]

Non-fiction

• The Good Soldier (1991), collected in Granta 35: The Unbearable Peace^[6]
• The United States Has Gone Mad (2003), collected in Not One More Death (2006),
• Afterword (2014), an essay on Kim Philby, published in A Spy Among Friends by Ben Macintyre^[7]
• (2016), Appeared at #10 for one week on the New York Times Best Seller nonfiction list.
• A Private Spy: The Letters of John le Carré 1945-2020 (2022),

Film

Screenplays

Source(s):^[8]

• End of the Line (1970)
  • Smiley's People (1982) with John Hopkins A Murder of Quality (1991)
• The Tailor of Panama (2001), with John Boorman and Andrew Davies^[9]

Executive producer

Source(s):

• The Tailor of Panama (2001)
• Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011)
• A Most Wanted Man (2014)
• The Night Manager (2016)
• Our Kind of Traitor (2016)
• The Little Drummer Girl (2018)

Actor

Source(s):

• The Little Drummer Girl (1984), as David Cornwell^[10]
• Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011), as John le Carré^[11] - as participant at the Christmas party.

• The Night Manager (2016), as David Cornwell^[12] - as the offended guest at a restaurant.
• Our Kind of Traitor (2016) - as a ticket seller at the museum.
• The Little Drummer Girl (2018)^[13]

Adaptations

After many years of working with various producers who made film adaptations of his novels, two of Cornwell's sons, Simon and Stephen, founded the production company The Ink Factory in 2010. This was to produce adaptations of his works as well as other film productions. The Ink Factory has produced the films A Most Wanted Man and Our Kind of Traitor, and the TV series The Night Manager and The Little Drummer Girl.^[14]

Film

Source(s):^[15]

• The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1965), directed by Martin Ritt, with Richard Burton as the protagonist, Alec Leamas
• The Deadly Affair (1967), an adaptation of Call for the Dead, directed by Sidney Lumet, with James Mason as Charles Dobbs (George Smiley in the novel)
• The Looking Glass War (1970), directed by Frank Pierson, with Anthony Hopkins as Avery, Christopher Jones as Leiser, and Sir Ralph Richardson as LeClerc
• The Little Drummer Girl (1984), directed by George Roy Hill, with Diane Keaton as Charlie
• The Russia House (1990), directed by Fred Schepisi, with Sean Connery as Barley Blair
• The Tailor of Panama (2001), directed by John Boorman, with Pierce Brosnan as Andy Osnard, a disgraced spy, and Geoffrey Rush as the emigre English tailor Harry Pendel
• The Constant Gardener (2005), directed by Fernando Meirelles, with Ralph Fiennes as Justin Quayle, set in the slums in Kibera and Loiyangalani, Kenya; the poverty so affected the film crew that they established the Constant Gardener Trust to provide basic education to those areas (John le Carré was a patron of the charity)^{[16] [17]}
• Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011), directed by Tomas Alfredson and starring Gary Oldman as George Smiley
• A Most Wanted Man (2014), directed by Anton Corbijn and starring Philip Seymour Hoffman
• Our Kind of Traitor (2016), directed by Susanna White and starring Ewan McGregor

Radio

• The Russia House (1994), BBC Radio 4, featuring Tom Baker as Barley Blair^[18]
• The Complete Smiley (2009–2010) BBC Radio 4, an eight-part radio-play series, based on the novels featuring George Smiley, commencing with Call for the Dead, broadcast on 23 May 2009, with Simon Russell Beale as George Smiley, and concluding with The Secret Pilgrim in June 2010^[19]
• A Delicate Truth (May 2013), BBC Radio 4's Book at Bedtime, recorded by Damian Lewis^[20]
• Abridged excerpts from The Pigeon Tunnel, broadcast as BBC Radio 4's Book of the Week, commencing on 12 September 2016^[21]

Television

Source(s):

• Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (1979), BBC seven-part television series, with Alec Guinness as George Smiley
• Smiley's People (1982), BBC television series, with Alec Guinness as George Smiley
• A Perfect Spy (1987), BBC television adaptation directed by Peter Smith, with Peter Egan as Magnus Pym and Ray McAnally as Rick
• A Murder of Quality (1991), Thames Television adaptation directed by Gavin Millar, with Denholm Elliott as George Smiley and Joss Ackland as Terence Fielding
• The Night Manager (2016), BBC and AMC series, adapted by screenwriter David Farr and directed by Susanne Bier, with Tom Hiddleston as Jonathan Pine and Hugh Laurie as Richard Onslow Roper
• The Little Drummer Girl (2018), BBC and AMC series, directed by Park Chan-wook, with Florence Pugh as Charlie Ross, Michael Shannon as Martin Kurtz, and Alexander Skarsgård as Gadi Becker. ^[22]

Notes and References

1. News: George Smiley to return in new John le Carré novel, A Legacy of Spies. Danuta. Kean. 7 March 2017. The Guardian. 8 March 2017. 8 March 2017. https://web.archive.org/web/20170308095326/https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/mar/07/george-smiley-to-return-new-john-le-carre-novel-a-legacy-of-spies. live.
2. Web site: Adult New York Times Best Seller Listings . Hawes Publications . 11 March 2024.
3. Web site: 31 October 2012. Famous Contributors: John le Carré. 14 December 2020. The Saturday Evening Post. en-US.
4. Web site: Manuscript Auction. 30 August 2021. en-US.
5. Web site: Ox-Tales:Fire Babel TinyCat. 14 December 2020. Babel. en.
6. Book: Le Carré. John. The Unbearable Peace. Buford. Bill. Granta Publications. 1991. 978-0-14-015204-3. Cambridge. en. 25847433.
7. News: Robert McCrum. A Spy Among Friends Review: Kim Philby's Treacherous Friendship with Nicholas Elliot. 9 March 2014. 25 March 2014. The Observer. 24 March 2014. https://web.archive.org/web/20140324164123/http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/mar/09/spy-among-friends-kim-philby-ben-macintyre-review. live.
8. Web site: John le Carré. 13 December 2020. BFI. en. 21 November 2020. https://web.archive.org/web/20201121005248/https://www2.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/4ce2ba17c8290. dead.
9. Web site: The Tailor of Panama (2001). https://web.archive.org/web/20170913030524/http://www.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/4ce2b842628d8. dead. September 13, 2017. 14 December 2020. BFI. en.
10. Web site: 'The Little Drummer Girl': John Le Carre makes appearance in second adaptation of his 1983 novel. 14 December 2020. meaww.com. 14 November 2018 . en.
11. Web site: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011). https://web.archive.org/web/20170310112057/http://www.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/4f4b945a6e6cb. dead. March 10, 2017. 14 December 2020. BFI. en.
12. News: Foster. Patrick. 11 October 2016. 'Very naughty' John le Carre tried to beef up cameo role in The Night Manager. en-GB. The Telegraph. 14 December 2020. 0307-1235.
13. Web site: Hoffman. Jordan. Everything You Need to Know About AMC's Spy Miniseries 'The Little Drummer Girl'. 14 December 2020. Thrillist. 19 November 2018 .
14. Web site: Macnab. Geoffrey. The Brit 50: The Ink Factory. 2020-12-14. Screen International. en. 30 October 2018. 14 December 2020. https://web.archive.org/web/20201214015959/https://www.screendaily.com/features/the-brit-50-the-ink-factory/5133916.article. live.
15. Web site: John le Carré. 13 December 2020. BFI. en. 21 November 2020. https://web.archive.org/web/20201121005248/https://www2.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/4ce2ba17c8290. dead.
16. Book: Nigel Eltringham. Framing Africa: Portrayals of a Continent in Contemporary Mainstream Cinema. 2013. Berghahn Books. 9781782380740. 83–85. 29 January 2019. 14 December 2020. https://web.archive.org/web/20201214155115/https://books.google.com/books?id=qWxFAAAAQBAJ&q=%22Constant+Gardener+Trust%22+-wikipedia&pg=PA85. live.
17. Book: Julian Friedland. Doing Well and Good: The Human Face of the New Capitalism. 2009. IAP. 9781607521761. 205. 29 January 2019. 14 December 2020. https://web.archive.org/web/20201214155139/https://books.google.com/books?id=dvcnDwAAQBAJ&q=%22Constant+Gardener+Trust%22+-wikipedia&pg=PA205. live.
18. News: 21 July 1994. The Russia House. en-GB. 103. The Radio Times. 3680. 13 December 2020. 0033-8060. 14 December 2020. https://web.archive.org/web/20201214015952/https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/13075bff229d478fac7a71fa90cd1c58. live.
19. Web site: The Complete Smiley . BBC Radio 4 . 23 May 2009 . 28 May 2009 . https://web.archive.org/web/20090528034420/http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/features/smiley-season/ . live .
20. News: 13 May 2013 . John le Carre: 'My Frustration with Britain' . BBC News . 13 May 2013 . 9 June 2013 . https://web.archive.org/web/20130609105803/http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-22452335 . live .
21. Web site: The Pigeon Tunnel: Stories from My Life by John le Carre, Book of the Week. BBC Radio 4. 22 December 2019. 24 September 2017. https://web.archive.org/web/20170924180136/http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07w0sgk. live.
22. Patterson. Troy. "The Little Drummer Girl," Reviewed: A Fever Dream of Glamorous Espionage. 14 December 2020. The New Yorker. 16 November 2018 . en-us. 1 January 2020. https://web.archive.org/web/20200101184107/https://www.newyorker.com/culture/on-television/the-little-drummer-girl-reviewed-a-fever-dream-of-glamorous-espionage. live.