Masaryk university

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the British. He is interested in being in espionage for the adventure and fun.

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108

109

110

111

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106107 Drabble, Margaret. The Oxford Companion to English literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 1997. p.173-175 Sanders, Andrew.:Op.cit.,p.472-473

108 Ousby, Ian.: Op.cit.,p.545-546

109 110 Carrington, Charles Edmund. Rudyard Kipling: His life and work. Ney York: Penguin Literary Biographis. 1959 . p. 54-62 Ousby, Ian.: Op.cit.,p.184

111 112 Erskine Childers. Fantastic Fiction Web. 23 March 2009. Drabble, Margareth. The Oxford Companion to English Literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 1997. p. 195. Drabble, Margareth. The Oxford Companion to English Literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 1997. p. 195. 10

6 Kipling was also an author of short stories. His first stories included in the collection Lif e´s Handicap – The Man who was (1890) a story of a British officer who had been captured in Russia during the intelligence service task and fled many years later. The Man who was shows seamy sides of the army, the rituals, loyalty but also the frustration of the officers. The second story The Mutiny of the Mavericks has a different theme – features the role of a secret Irish republican organization based in America which followed its goal to cause a mutiny (with the help of an agent provocateur) against the British among the Irish soldiers. Another Kipling´s story with spy plot is A Burgher of the Free State and a poem with spy theme The Spies March about the role of spy in war. Most of Kipli ng´s stories were set in India and they dealt with the fighting between the native and the British forces on the Afghanistan border. Many of them were spy stories. “ Riddle of the Sands” by Erskine Childers (1870-1922) appeared in 1903. Erskiene Robert Childers was a writer and political activist, worked as a clerk in the House of Commons and served as a soldier in the Boer War, and later paid attention to Irish political affairs.” Childers is re me mbered for his novel “ Riddle of the Sands” which is the story of two English men who sailed with a yacht to the Frisian Islands and found out that German planned an prepared invasion to England. This whole text of the novel is characterized with a good mastery for detail, high moral values, civic consciousness and political earnestness. The novel includes within the text a number of maps and charts so that reader can follow the events logically with his eyes on the maps. Moreover Childers used his credible military and navy knowledge and terms. This novel is free of the sensationalism and xenophobia of Le Queux and other contemporaries. Childers´ descendents are Ia n Fleming´s Bond novels, and the various

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113authors of the vast amount of war novels. Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936) is another great spy and detective fiction writer whom the attention should be paid to. He was so great because he was considered to be the greatest thinker of the twentieth century. 114 He wrote a hundred books, contributions to poems, plays, novels and some short stories, including a popular series featuring the priest-detective, Father Brown. Chesterton was first of all a journalist because he wrote several hundreds of newspaper essays for Daily News and other newspapers. His style is connected with wit, wonder, surprise and humility. 115 His best-known character was the priest-detective Father Brown who as a Roman Catholic was interested in crime and in taking criminals. He became a very successful detective because he could read human nature and character, was willing and ready to risk and his incidental death did not mean anything to him. Moreover he understood the criminals and their grounds why they do such bad things. He was endowed with simple common sense and intuition what other people lacked. Stories featuring Father Brown were published in five volumes. The Innocence of Father Brown (1910), The Wisdom of Father Brown (1913), The Incredulity of Father Brown (1923), The Secret of Father Brown (1927) and The Scandal of Father Brown (1939). 116 In all volumes Chesterton shows his deep understanding for human beings and their behavior. “ Father Brown´s figure was based on a real Irish Roman Catholic priest Father John O´Conn or of St. Cut hbert´s, Bradford to whom The Secret of Father Brown was dedicated ( the fourth volume)” . 117 His other well-known novel is The Man who was Thursday (1908) where his spy joined the inner group of seven bombers, considered them to be anarchists, six of them all will turn out to be police informants spying on each other. His another novel with spy and detective elements was called The Man who knew too much (1922). 118 “ Neither Conrad nor Chesterton takes seriously the idea of the nation under the threat which is central to John Buchan´s Richard Hannay novels.”st John Buchan (1875-1940), rank among the authors who wrote also spy novels. He was 1 Baron Tweedsmuir, a Scottish diplomat, barrister, journalist, historian, poet and

113 Ousby, Ian.: Op.cit.,p.182-183

114 115 Sanders, Andrew.:Op.cit.,p.491-492 Priestman, Martin. The Cambridge Companion to Crime Fiction. Cambridge: Cambridge

116 University Press.2003. p.54. 117 Grosset, Philip. Clerical Detectives. 15 October 2009 Sanders, Andrew.:Op.cit.,p.491-492, 513

118 Priestman, Martin.:op.cit., p.120

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119novelist.120 He wrote adventure novels which are high in romance. He paid the attention to the description of the landscapes. In my opinion his stories are full of characteristic elements of nationalism. “ In Buchan and the genre of the gentleman spy, patriotism was given a markedly right-wing character. “ In Buchan´s world, there is really no coincidence or accident. What appears to be chance is actually the mysterious and enigmatic working of providence. This means that the novels symbolically re-enact the establishment of a desired order threatened by malign forces.”121 He became best known for his novel The Thirty-Nine Steps, as well as his horror fiction. The novel The ThirtyNine Steps introduced his famous hero, a fictional secret agent Richard Hannay who can be found in other four novels (Greenmantle, Mr. Standfast, The Three Hostages and The Island of Sheep). The novel The Thirty-Nine Steps featured details of the urgent necessity for counterespionage in a typical German plot against the English Navy.122 Richard Hannay was depicted as a patriotic type of spy. He is described by Buchan as an engineer who used to live in South Africa, who is skilled in solving the codes, a sportsman, and above all these aspects, first of all a man with the character of a real gentleman. In Buchan´s story “there is also very little discussion of the ethics of secret service.” In general the forces which Buchan lines up show the polarity between good and evil and what is visible, his villains are very striking.

4.4. The Deglamorising of Spy Novel With the approaching end of nineteenth century spies were presented in a different way than it used to be in the past. They were not glamorized and glorified but seen as common people. Spies were considered as people with a certain job which is connected with a certain amount of risk and danger. They were described more in a natural way as hu man bei ngs with ever yday´s mist akes and problems which everybody does and has. Josef Conrad was also the author whose spy figures were deglamorized. His spy protagonists were not so self-confident and self-assured. They never were made up to

119 Ousby, Ian.: Op.cit.,p.137

120121 Priestman, Martin.: op.cit.,p.120-121 Ousby, Ian.: Op.cit.,p.137

122 Priestman, Martin.:op.cit.,p.121

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be admired or to be imitated by someone. With their appearance and abilities arouse more sorrow and mercy than whatever else. Josef Conrad (1857-1924) ( with his own name Josef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski)

123124 is also one of the English writing authors connected with the history of spy novel. Conrad was known as a novelist and short story writer. His literary style and anti-heroic character have influenced and inspired many writers. Though he was Polish in origin, he had a very excellent command of languages because he was able to write in English, French etc. , even the literary texts. Conrad´s novels and stories have also inspired such films as Sabotage adapted fro m aut hor´s The Secret Agent or Franc is Ford Coppola´s Apocalypse Now adapted from Conrad´s Heart of Darkness. 125 The Secret Agent is set in London in 1886 and deals largely with the life of Mr. Verloc and his job as a spy. Nobody had an idea that he was employed as an agent provocateur. It shows anarchist or revolutionary tendencies before many of the social and political uprisings of the twentieth century. The Secret Agent by Josef Conrad has been note d as “one of the most cited works in the American media since September 11, 2001. 126 The period after the First World War saw a number of changes and shifts in the style and structure of spy fiction. After WWI, the next phase of espionage literature reflected and depicted a perspective increasingly critical of official state authority. The spies in works by authors including Eric Ambler, Somerset Maugham, and especially Graham Greene, often are lonely human beings, individuals on the fringe of a society. Somerset Maugham´s Ashenden: Or the British Agent (1928), which was based on the author ´s experiences when he worked in Switzerland for British Intelligence. Ashenden is considered as the first realistic story of espionage. William Sommerset Maugham (1874-1965) worked for British Intelligence in Europe during the war and was recruited to the network of British agencies operated in Switzerland and later in Russia. “ His Ashenden is a collection of linked stories which is considered to be an archetype of the espionage novel which influenced the Ian Fleming James Bond novels and a book to which more modern practitioners such as Eric Ambler, Ian Fleming, Graham Greene, Len Deighton, John le Carré , Robert Ludlum and Alan Furst are indebted for its role in developing the genre. As example of this is the device, which

123 Ousby, Ian.: Op.cit.,p.217

124 Ousby, Ian.: Op.cit.,p.217-218

125 The Secret Agent. Wikipedia Free Encyclopedia. 10 April 2009