A classic compendium of espionage stories penned by some of the greatest writers and most famous spies. With a new introduction by Stella Rimington, former head of MI5.

The foxhunter, the angler, the cricketer — each has had his own bedside book. Why not the spy? First published in 1957, The Spy’s Bedside Book provoked much interest and pleasure and, perhaps unsurprisingly, a hundred copies were bought by East German Intelligence. This classic anthology, beautifully repackaged as a small-format hardback, will enthrall readers once again with its tales of espionage from a bygone era, while also revealing a secret or two, such as how to hide messages in a boiled egg and why you should always put pepper in your vodka when in Russia.

Most of the great writers on spying and many practitioners are represented in these pages: Sir Robert Baden-Powell and Belle Boyd, Ian Fleming and John Buchan, Walter Schellenberg and Major Andre, Sir Paul Dukes and Vladimir Petrov — and from the golden age of espionage, William Le Queux and E. Phillips Oppenheim. William Blake, D.H. Lawrence and Thomas Mann, all suspected of espionage in three great wars, are some of the unexpected figures.


From the Hardcover edition.