Thomas Elphinstone Hambledon

Last updated

Thomas Elphinstone Hambledon (Tommy Hambledon) is the fictional protagonist of many spy novels written by the British author "Manning Coles" (actually the two-person writing team of Adelaide Frances Oke Manning and Cyril Henry Coles) from 1940 through 1963. He works for a department of the Foreign Office, usually referred to in the novels as "MI5" (counter-intelligence), although in the earliest books he is clearly working for the active overseas department MI6. [1]

Contents

Character background

Hambledon is a teacher in a British boarding school in his first appearance in Drink to Yesterday (1940) and, during school holidays, a spy in Germany for the Foreign Office. At the end of this book, which takes place in World War I and in which he is known only as Tommy Hambledon, he disappears at sea and is presumed dead. He reappears as the hero of the next book, Pray Silence (1940) (known in the U.S. by the title Toast to Tomorrow), which begins in the 1920s. He is an amnesiac in Germany who gradually works his way up in the fledgling Nazi Party until, in 1933, he becomes Hitler's Chief of Police. He recovers his memory on the night of the Reichstag fire, and thereafter battles to defeat Hitler and his plans. His full name is revealed to be Thomas Elphinstone Hambledon. At the end of the book he fakes his own death in Danzig (Hitler himself delivers the eulogy at his 'funeral') and stows away with his colleague, Alfred Reck, on a British cargo ship bound for Cardiff. On their return to Britain he and Reck are faced with the problem of a series of unexplained sinkings of ships not long out of harbour in Portsmouth in They Tell No Tales (1941).

In Green Hazard (1945) the Gestapo mistake him for Professor Ulseth, inventor of a new and extremely powerful high explosive, and kidnap him. He then finds himself once again in Berlin where he has to fool his 'hosts' into believing that he actually knows something about chemistry whilst praying that they will fail to recognise a former colleague. After World War II, he continues his career in the Foreign Office and helps defeat a number of Communist plots. In these later adventures, he is frequently aided by Forgan and Campbell, a semi-comic team of model-makers from the Clerkenwell Road in London, who first appear in A Brother for Hugh (1947). In this and some other of Manning Coles' subsequent novels Hambledon actually occupies quite a minor role in The Man in the Green Hat (1955) he hardly appears at all in the first half of the book.

Hambledon is thought to have been based by Coles on a former teacher of his. [2] He eventually became the youngest officer in British intelligence, often working behind German lines, due to his extraordinary ability to master languages. [2]

Cyril Coles himself was a model maker and was, at the time of his death, building a train set from scratch for his young grandson.[ citation needed ]

In the season four premiere episode of Archer , the titular secret agent character is similarly suffering from amnesia, believing himself to be the eponymous hamburger chef character of the animated series Bob's Burgers . The "daily special" on the menu board is "Thomas Elphinstone Hambledurger with Manning Coleslaw".

Related Research Articles

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.

Leonard Cyril Deighton is a British author. His publications have included cookery books and works on history, but he is best known for his spy novels.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ian Fleming</span> British author (1908–1964)

Ian Lancaster Fleming was a British writer, best known for his postwar James Bond series of spy novels. Fleming came from a wealthy family connected to the merchant bank Robert Fleming & Co., and his father was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Henley from 1910 until his death on the Western Front in 1917. Educated at Eton, Sandhurst, and, briefly, the universities of Munich and Geneva, Fleming moved through several jobs before he started writing.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Murders in the Rue Morgue</span> Short story by Edgar Allan Poe published 1841

"The Murders in the Rue Morgue" is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe published in Graham's Magazine in 1841. It has been described as the first modern detective story; Poe referred to it as one of his "tales of ratiocination".

<i>The Spy Who Came in from the Cold</i> 1963 spy novel by John le Carré

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cambridge Five</span> British ring of spies for the Soviet Union

The Cambridge Five were a ring of spies in the United Kingdom that passed information to the Soviet Union during the Second World War and the Cold War and was active from the 1930s until at least the early 1950s. None of the known members were ever prosecuted for spying. The number and membership of the ring emerged slowly, from the 1950s onwards.

<i>The Quiet American</i> Novel by Graham Greene

The Quiet American is a 1955 novel by English author Graham Greene.

Manning Coles was the pseudonym of two British writers, Adelaide Frances Oke Manning (1891–1959) and Cyril Henry Coles (1899–1965), who wrote many spy thrillers from the early 1940s through the early 1960s. The fictional protagonist in 26 of their books was Thomas Elphinstone Hambledon, who works for a department of the Foreign Office, usually referred to in the novels as "MI5".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">C. Auguste Dupin</span> Fictional French crime-solver created by Edgar Allan Poe

Le ChevalierC. Auguste Dupin is a fictional character created by Edgar Allan Poe. Dupin made his first appearance in Poe's 1841 short story "The Murders in the Rue Morgue", widely considered the first detective fiction story. He reappears in "The Mystery of Marie Rogêt" (1842) and "The Purloined Letter" (1844).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Adolf Hitler in popular culture</span>

Adolf Hitler, dictator of Germany from 1933 to 1945, has been represented in popular culture ever since he became a well-known politician in Germany. His distinctive image was often parodied by his opponents. Parodies became much more prominent outside Germany during his period in power. Since the end of World War II representations of Hitler, both serious and satirical, have continued to be prominent in popular culture, sometimes generating significant controversy. In many periodicals, books, and movies, Hitler and Nazism fulfill the role of archetypal evil. This treatment is not confined to fiction but is widespread amongst nonfiction writers who have discussed him in this vein. Hitler has retained a fascination from other perspectives; among many comparable examples is an exhibition at the German Historical Museum which was widely attended.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Helmut Knochen</span> SS officer and Holocaust perpetrator

Helmut Herbert Christian Heinrich Knochen was the senior commander of the Sicherheitspolizei and Sicherheitsdienst in Paris during the Nazi occupation of France during World War II. He was sentenced to death first by a British military court in 1947, and then by a Parisian military tribunal in 1954. After his sentences were commuted and reduced a few times, he was pardoned by President de Gaulle and released in 1962.

"Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow" is the beginning of the second sentence of one of the most famous soliloquies in William Shakespeare's tragedy Macbeth. It takes place in the beginning of the fifth scene of Act 5, during the time when the Scottish troops, led by Malcolm and Macduff, are approaching Macbeth's castle to besiege it. Macbeth, the play's protagonist, is confident that he can withstand any siege from Malcolm's forces. He hears the cry of a woman and reflects that there was a time when his hair would have stood on end if he had heard such a cry, but he is now so full of horrors and slaughterous thoughts that it can no longer startle him.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gilbert Frankau</span> British writer

Gilbert Frankau was a popular British novelist. He was known also for verse, including a number of verse novels, and short stories. He was born in London into a Jewish family but was baptised as an Anglican at the age of 13. After education at Eton College, he went into the family cigar business and became managing director on his twenty-first birthday, his father, Arthur Frankau, having died in November 1904. A few months before his death, at sixty-eight, from lung cancer, he converted to Roman Catholicism.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Friedrich Reck-Malleczewen</span> German writer

Friedrich Percyval Reck-Malleczewen was a German author. His best-known work is Diary of a Man in Despair, a journal in which he expressed his passionate opposition to Adolf Hitler and Nazism. He was eventually arrested by the Nazis and died at the Dachau concentration camp.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cyril Raymond</span> British actor (1899-1973)

Cyril William North Raymond MBE was a British character actor. He maintained a stage and screen career from his teens until his retirement, caused by ill health, in the 1960s.

<i>Adolf Hitler: My Part in His Downfall</i> 1971 war memoir by Spike Milligan

Adolf Hitler: My Part in His Downfall, published in 1971, is the first volume of Spike Milligan's war memoirs. The book spans the period from Britain's declaration of war on Germany to when Milligan lands in Algeria as a part of the Allied liberation of Africa.

<i>Heroes: Saving Charlie</i>

Saving Charlie is a novel by Aury Wallington and published by Del Rey Books (ISBN 0345503228), it is based on the television series Heroes. It was released on December 26, 2007, in the United States. It is 256 pages long, and was made with the full cooperation of the show's creators, although its canonicity about the television series has not yet been established.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Frances Crane</span> American journalist

Frances Kirkwood Crane was an American mystery author, who introduced private investigator Pat Abbott and his future wife Jean in her first novel, The Turquoise Shop (1941). The Abbotts investigated crimes in a total of 26 volumes, each with a color in the title.

Works of popular culture influenced by H. G. Wells' 1897 novel The Invisible Man include:

References

  1. Schantz, Tom; Schantz, Enid (January 2008). "Manning Coles". Rue Morgue Press. Archived from the original on 2012-09-29. Retrieved 2014-04-08. broken link
  2. 1 2 "Manning Coles". Rue Morgue Press. 5 January 1918. Archived from the original on 29 September 2012. Retrieved 23 August 2021.