Publication details of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy:

Published in 1974

Other literary works include:

Call for the Dead (1961)
The Spy Who Came in From the Cold (1963)
The Russia House (1989)
The Tailor of Panama (1996)

Born:

19th of October, 1931, Dorset, UK

Early years:

His father was a confidence trickster and he spent a lot of time in gaol. Le Carre never knew his mother until he was 21.

Schooling:

Le Carre was educated at the Sherborne School at the University of Berne (where he studied German literature for a year) and at Lincoln Colege, Oxford, where he graduated with a first-class honours degree in modern languages.

Career:

He taught at Eton from 1956 to 1958 and was a member of the British Foreign Service from 1959 to 1964, serving first as a Secondary Secretary in the British Embassy in Bonn and subsequently as Political Consul in Hamburg. He started writing novels in 1961, and since then he has published eighteen titles. His books have won prizes including the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, and the Malaparte Prize in Italy. Six of his books have been filmed and three made into television series. Le Carre is an Honorary Fellow of Lincoln College, Southhampton and the University of St. Andrews.

Final years:

Died: