The Berlin Memorandum (UK title, published by Collins; published as The Quiller Memorandum in the US by Simon & Schuster),[1] is a 1965 spy novel written by Elleston Trevor (under the pseudonym Adam Hall). It is the debut novel of the character Quiller, who was ultimately featured in a series of 19 thrillers, until Trevor's death in 1995, having been Trevor's most popular character.[2]
In Britain, The Bookseller reported that the novel was one of Collins' best selling works in spring 1965.[3] Portions of it were serialized in the Daily Mail.[3] By June 1965, The Publishers Association had The Berlin Memorandum in its top 5 best sellers list for fiction in Britain.[4]
Anthony Boucher, writing for The New York Times Book Review, subsequently said that The Quiller Memorandum had attracted a "large body of readers" and that it was "one of the small handful of truly distinguished spy novels of the 1960s."[7] It has been considered part of a wave of spy novels influenced by John le Carré's groundbreaking 1963 work The Spy Who Came in from the Cold.[8] In fact, Trevor later said he had been inspired by reading a review of (but not, fearing he might take too close an influence, the actual text of) The Spy Who Came in from the Cold.[9]
It was adapted as the 1966 film The Quiller Memorandum starring George Segal based on a screenplay written by Harold Pinter.[2] The film took many departures from the novel, including making Quiller an American,[10] and Trevor was unhappy with Pinter's work on it.[9]
Collins then republished the novel as The Quiller Memorandum in the UK in 1967,[1] to capitalise on the film.
Quiller is introduced as a serving Britishintelligence officer in a black organization called "the Bureau" and as a veteran of clandestine service during World War II. Quiller never states which service he worked in during wartime, and we are not told the year in which that organization was founded. It is, however, mentioned the original explicit purpose of the Bureau was to prevent any possible resurgence of German militarism, any situation that might lead to something resembling a Fourth Reich.
Numerous governments offered him medals for his actions in the war, but he refused them all. During and after his wartime service, Quiller became a specialist in understanding Nazi clandestine organizations and their activities, particularly the so-called "ratlines" used by Nazis to escape from justice. Most of the book takes place in 1965, by which time Quiller has been seconded by the Bureau to secretly provide large amounts of useful intelligence information to West Germany's main war crimes investigation agency, the Z Commission. Quiller is tired and wants to return home, but the Bureau persuades him to investigate the plans of a Nazi secret society. He agrees to do so in part because that secret society has just assassinated a friend and colleague whom he had deeply respected.
Spy fiction is a genre of literature involving espionage as an important context or plot device. It emerged in the early twentieth century, inspired by rivalries and intrigues between the major powers, and the establishment of modern intelligence agencies. It was given new impetus by the development of fascism and communism in the lead-up to World War II, continued to develop during the Cold War, and received a fresh impetus from the emergence of rogue states, international criminal organizations, global terrorist networks, maritime piracy and technological sabotage and espionage as potent threats to Western societies. As a genre, spy fiction is thematically related to the novel of adventure, the thriller and the politico-military thriller.
The spy film, also known as the spy thriller, is a genre of film that deals with the subject of fictional espionage, either in a realistic way or as a basis for fantasy. Many novels in the spy fiction genre have been adapted as films, including works by John Buchan, le Carré, Ian Fleming (Bond) and Len Deighton. It is a significant aspect of British cinema, with leading British directors such as Alfred Hitchcock and Carol Reed making notable contributions and many films set in the British Secret Service.
Leonard Cyril Deighton is a British author. His publications have included cookery books, history and military history, but he is best known for his spy novels.
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold is a 1963 Cold War spy novel by the British author John le Carré. It depicts Alec Leamas, a British agent, being sent to East Germany as a faux defector to sow disinformation about a powerful East German intelligence officer. It serves as a sequel to le Carré's previous novels Call for the Dead and A Murder of Quality, which also featured the fictitious British intelligence organization, "The Circus", and its agents George Smiley and Peter Guillam.
Allen Welsh Dulles was the first civilian director of central intelligence (DCI), and its longest-serving director to date. As head of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) during the early Cold War, he oversaw the 1953 Iranian coup d'état, the 1954 Guatemalan coup d'état, the Lockheed U-2 aircraft program, the Project MKUltra mind control program and the Bay of Pigs Invasion. He was fired by John F. Kennedy over the latter fiasco.
David John Moore Cornwell, better known by his pen name John le Carré, was a British and Irish author, best known for his espionage novels, many of which were successfully adapted for film or television. "A sophisticated, morally ambiguous writer", he is considered one of the greatest novelists of the postwar era. During the 1950s and 1960s he worked for both the Security Service (MI5) and the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6).
Senta Verhoeven is an Austrian-German actress. She received many award nominations for her acting in theatre, film and television; her awards include three Bambi Awards, two Romys, an Adolf Grimme Award, both a Deutscher and a Bayerischer Fernsehpreis, and a Goldene Kamera.
George Smiley OBE is a fictional character created by John le Carré. Smiley is a career intelligence officer with "The Circus", the British overseas intelligence agency. He is a central character in the novels Call for the Dead, A Murder of Quality, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, The Honourable Schoolboy, and Smiley's People, and a supporting character in The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, The Looking Glass War, The Secret Pilgrim and A Legacy of Spies. The character has also appeared in a number of film, television, and radio adaptations of le Carré's books.
John Edmund Gardner was an English spy and thriller novelist, best known for his James Bond continuation novels, but also for his series of Boysie Oakes books and three continuation novels containing Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's fictional villain, Professor Moriarty.
Elleston Trevor was a British novelist and playwright who wrote under several pseudonyms. Born Trevor Dudley-Smith, he eventually changed his name to Elleston Trevor. Trevor worked in many genres, but is principally remembered for his 1964 adventure story The Flight of the Phoenix, written as Elleston Trevor, and for a series of Cold War thrillers featuring the British secret agent Quiller, written under the pseudonym Adam Hall.
Quiller is a fictional character created by English novelist Elleston Trevor. Quiller, whose one-word name is a pseudonym, works as a spy, and he is the hero of a series of 19 Cold War thrillers written under the pseudonym Adam Hall, and became Trevor's most popular character.
The Quiller Memorandum is a 1966 British neo noir eurospy film filmed in Deluxe Color and Panavision, adapted from the 1965 spy novel The Berlin Memorandum, by Elleston Trevor under the name "Adam Hall", screenplay by Harold Pinter, directed by Michael Anderson, featuring George Segal, Alec Guinness, Max von Sydow and Senta Berger. The film was shot on location in West Berlin and in Pinewood Studios, England. It was nominated for three BAFTA Awards, while Pinter was nominated for an Edgar Award for the script.
The Spy Who Came In from the Cold is a 1965 British spy film based on the 1963 novel of the same name by John le Carré. The film stars Richard Burton, Claire Bloom, and Oskar Werner. It was directed by Martin Ritt, and the screenplay was written by Paul Dehn and Guy Trosper.
John Michael Ward Bingham, 7th Baron Clanmorris was a onetime MI5 spy and an English novelist who published 17 thrillers, detective novels, and spy novels.
JP Trevor is a British conceptual artist best known for his surrealist and realist landscape painting and film design.
Quiller is a British drama television series starring Michael Jayston. The series premièred with the episode The Price of Violence on 29 August 1975 on BBC One. Quiller is the alias of a fictional spy created by English novelist Elleston Trevor who featured in a series of Cold War thrillers written under the pseudonym "Adam Hall".
Quiller is a fictional spy created by English novelist Elleston Trevor.
The Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), commonly known as MI6, is the foreign intelligence service of the United Kingdom, tasked mainly with the covert overseas collection and analysis of human intelligence in support of the UK's national security. SIS is one of the British intelligence agencies and the Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service ("C") is directly accountable to the Foreign Secretary.
Bury Him Among Kings is a 1970 novel by Elleston Trevor. The title is taken from the Inscription on the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior in Westminster Abbey in London commemorating a British soldier of World War I. The plot involves a fictitious British Army battalion, the Third Dukes, serving on the Western Front in France between 1914-1918; the cast of characters includes a wide range both of those serving and their friends and family at home.
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