LIT 141 — The Espionage Novel
Spring
Thursdays
7:00—8:50 pm
Date(s)
Mar 31—Jun 2
10 weeks
Drop By
Apr 13
2 Units
Fees
$405
Format
On-campus course
Open
Great espionage novels have been increasingly taken seriously as a form of literature. This course will explore some of the best examples from the genre, moving from 1900 to the present. Given its dramatic themes like betrayal, loyalty, fear, cynicism, and danger, espionage fiction has long attracted serious writers. An early and timeless example is Joseph Conrad’s The Secret Agent (1907), a novel about international spies in London that would fit into today’s headlines without any changes. Eric Ambler in the 1930s and 1940s, and Alan Furst today, brilliantly recreate the great cities of Europe before World War II in a way that makes them come alive to us again. And writers like Ian Fleming, Somerset Maugham, Graham Greene, John le Carré, and Frederick Forsyth could hardly help but write espionage fiction because they themselves were spies before they first wrote about spying and the gray world they knew so well. We will start and end with two real-life cases of espionage too unbelievable for fiction, the Dreyfus case in France, a story of heroism, innocence, and deceit; and the Cambridge Five—men who betrayed Britain to the Soviet Union for thirty years while rising to the top ranks of the British establishment. In between these cases, we will engage with espionage fiction as part of a longer novelistic tradition and as a particularly apt expression of angst and action in the face of danger.
Joyce Moser, Associate Director, Stanford Introductory Studies
Joyce Moser has taught at Stanford since 1988. Her research interests center on American literature from 1870 to 1940, particularly California writing, detective fiction, and Jewish-American literature. She received a PhD in English and humanities from Stanford.Textbooks for this course:
(Required) Alan Furst, The Book of Spies: An Anthology of Literary Espionage (ISBN 9780375759598)
(Required) Joseph Conrad, The Secret Agent (ISBN 9780451474292)
(Required) Eric Ambler, A Coffin for Dimitrios (ISBN 0-375-72671-3)
(Required) Graham Greene, The Quiet American (ISBN 9780142001387)
(Required) Ian Fleming, From Russia with Love (ISBN 9781612185477)
(Required) Alan Furst, The World at Night (ISBN 0-375-758585)
(Required) John le Carré, The Spy Who Came In From the Cold (ISBN 978-0143124757)
(Required) Joseph Conrad, The Secret Agent (ISBN 9780451474292)
(Required) Eric Ambler, A Coffin for Dimitrios (ISBN 0-375-72671-3)
(Required) Graham Greene, The Quiet American (ISBN 9780142001387)
(Required) Ian Fleming, From Russia with Love (ISBN 9781612185477)
(Required) Alan Furst, The World at Night (ISBN 0-375-758585)
(Required) John le Carré, The Spy Who Came In From the Cold (ISBN 978-0143124757)