John Le Carré, The Quest for Karla

Download PDF Add to Bookshelf Report an Error

In 1982, John le Carré (pseudonym for John David Moore Cornwell) brought together three of his best-selling Cold War novels—

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

(1974),

The Honorable Schoolboy

(1977), and

Smiley’s People

(1979)—in an omnibus edition published as

The Quest for Karla

. In the novels, the sometimes reluctant but committed and honourable British spymaster, George Smiley, confronts his Soviet doppelgänger, Karla, as the two spymasters launch and thwart complicated operations designed to compromise the other’s intelligence agency and undermine the political values each spy espouses. Le Carré uses the ongoing confrontations between the two to explore his favorite ethical dilemmas including means versus ends, democratic versus socialist ideologies, political expediency versus…

2223 words

Citation: Beene, LynnDianne. "The Quest for Karla". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 05 October 2020 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=39422, accessed 04 December 2024.]

39422 The Quest for Karla 3 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

Save this article

Leave Feedback

The Literary Encyclopedia is a living community of scholars. We welcome comments which will help us improve.