The world of spy stories is intriguing and full of pathos and mystery. Whether you're thinking of true spy stories or fiction, the characters and situations are fascinating and a full literary genre evolved around this world. In many cases, spy stories novelists created stories where the fictional elements are connected to real events and characters, thus making the full story more exciting and interesting. On the other side, real spies need to create fictitious biographies for themselves, thus making fantasy and reality interconnected again. The idea of a spy stories repository that collects both typologies of stories, true spy stories and fiction (in both areas of spy novels and spy movies), will thus bring value to those interested in this world of mystery and intrigues.
Many great spy novels turned into successful movies; just think of the James Bond 007 series that originated from the books of Ian Fleming and became one of the classics of Hollywood big productions. Ian Fleming wrote 14 James Bond books, starting from Casino Royale (1953), up to Octopussy and The Living Daylights (1966); the James Bond 007 movie series began in 1954 with the first transposition of Casino Royale (a remake was done in 2006) and counts (to date) 25 movies (but 2 more are already planned). Nowadays we have the image of James Bond 007 bound to the faces of the great movie interpreters, from Sean Connery, the greatest of all, to Roger Moore, Pierce Brosnan, Timothy Dalton, Daniel Craig and George Lazenby (for one film only). However, the origin of the James Bond character (Ian Flemings books) should be properly reminded.
True spy stories have been transposed into many books and movies, so it's quite easy to find information on characters and facts that are at the basis of the greatest espionage events of history. Going back to the ancient world there is plenty of examples of how important leakage of information and treasons have been for the wars of the ancient people. However, it's looking at the most recent years (from the 19th century) that we have many anecdotes and figures that arrived to us (please note that we need to give us the benefit of the doubt on the completeness and correctness of the reported events, of course). Starting from the Dreyfus Affair in France, we go to the First and the Second World Wars, with all Nations busy sending their spies to get valuable, and sometimes crucial, information or release false news on purpose. After the Second World War came the Cold War, one of the most fertile periods for espionage both in real life and in fiction, with American spies in the Soviet Union, Soviet citizens betraying their Country (and vice versa), agents from England, France and all other Countries busy investigating, recording, photographing, etc. With the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the loss of importance of the former Soviet Bloc, spy novelists had to find new material for their spy stories, the fight against terrorism being the current main topic for spy literature.
If you want to learn more about this topic, you may want to visit Spy Stories, a website with different dedicated sections, links and information. Books and movies are classified according to the author, director and period of release, and are presented with pictures and reviews. Real life stories of famous spies of the past and contemporary events are also presented with useful links and further reading suggestions. Give a look to the Spy Novels section; it contains information and biographies of the main novelists of this genre, with links to their published books and video interviews.
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