Books

[1974]. The final changes to his masterpiece A rare draft typescript for the author's major novel, with several corrections and revisions in his hand. Significant pre-publication material for le Carré's novels is now almost entirely unobtainable: the author donated all of his personal papers to the Bodleian Library nine years before his death, including 20 manuscript and typescript drafts for the present novel. Le Carré began writing Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy in 1969. The present typescript seems to have been prepared just a few months before the novel's publication in June 1974, post-dating the drafts held at the Bodleian. It shows le Carré in the final stages of revision, diligently correcting spelling and punctuation, omitting and rewriting phrases and, in one instance, striking through four paragraphs of the novel's final chapter. Most significantly, an early version of page 269 has been removed, and two pages (numbered 268a and 269) subsequently tipped in. The typescript was…

A thrilling espionage tale that lays bare the apparatus of the Cold War.