# George Smiley
**George Smiley** is a fictional British spymaster and recurring character in the espionage novels of the British writer [John le Carré](https://www.edgepedia.org/john-le-carre) (1931–2020), first introduced in le Carré's debut novel *Call for the Dead* (1961) and appearing across nine of his novels.[1](https://www.fanlore.org/wiki/George_Smiley_%28character%29) • [2](https://lecarrecast.com/george-smiley-books-in-order/) Wearing glasses and described as "breathtakingly ordinary," he developed across the series into an anti-Bond figure, apt to be rummaging through dusty filing cabinets rather than racing away in escape vehicles.[3](https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/john-le-carre-nick-harkaway-karlas-choice-b2634302.html)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Creator and debut | Created by John le Carré; first appeared in *Call for the Dead* (1961)[1](https://www.fanlore.org/wiki/George_Smiley_%28character%29) • [2](https://lecarrecast.com/george-smiley-books-in-order/) |
| Appearance | "Short, fat and of a quiet disposition," appearing "to spend a lot of money on really bad clothes"[4](https://www.latimes.com/style/la-bkw-weinman23dec23-story.html) |
| Fictional birth year | Between 1906 and 1916; the date changes in the novels, stranding him in permanent middle age[5](https://www.countrylife.co.uk/luxury/art-and-antiques/forget-bond-the-understated-george-smiley-is-fictions-greatest-spy) |
| Le Carré novels | Nine, from *Call for the Dead* (1961) to *A Legacy of Spies* (2017)[2](https://lecarrecast.com/george-smiley-books-in-order/) |
| Karla trilogy | *Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy* (1974), *The Honourable Schoolboy* (1977), and *Smiley's People* (1979)[2](https://lecarrecast.com/george-smiley-books-in-order/) |
| Defining adversary | Karla, a Soviet spymaster, forced to defect in *Smiley's People* (1979)[6](https://www.cia.gov/resources/csi/static/The-Tourist-Trilogy.pdf) |
| Best-known portrayers | Alec Guinness (BBC, 1979 and 1982) and Gary Oldman (film, 2011)[7](https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2020/dec/15/how-john-le-carre-changed-television-and-paved-the-way-for-box-set-culture) • [5](https://www.countrylife.co.uk/luxury/art-and-antiques/forget-bond-the-understated-george-smiley-is-fictions-greatest-spy) |
| Continuation novels | *Karla's Choice* (2024) by Nick Harkaway, le Carré's son[3](https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/john-le-carre-nick-harkaway-karlas-choice-b2634302.html) |
## Character
Smiley is an undramatic, unassuming figure, a thwarted academic rather than an action man, prone to stewing over the moral implications of his work for decades.[3](https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/john-le-carre-nick-harkaway-karlas-choice-b2634302.html) Le Carré's introduction of him in *Call for the Dead* is often quoted: "Short, fat and of a quiet disposition, he appeared to spend a lot of money on really bad clothes, which hung about his squat frame like skin on a shrunken toad."[3](https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/john-le-carre-nick-harkaway-karlas-choice-b2634302.html) His signature habit, polishing his spectacles with the fat end of his tie, passed from the novels into the screen adaptations.[7](https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2020/dec/15/how-john-le-carre-changed-television-and-paved-the-way-for-box-set-culture)
His working world is the Circus, le Carré's term for the British secret service, so called because it operates out of Cambridge Circus in London.[3](https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/john-le-carre-nick-harkaway-karlas-choice-b2634302.html) • [8](https://www.gothamcalling.com/john-le-carres-circus-novels/) Recurring figures around him include his regularly unfaithful wife Ann Sercombe, his right-hand man Peter Guillam, and the Soviet mastermind Karla, whose name gives the later trilogy its umbrella title, *The Quest for Karla*.[8](https://www.gothamcalling.com/john-le-carres-circus-novels/) • [7](https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2020/dec/15/how-john-le-carre-changed-television-and-paved-the-way-for-box-set-culture) Although Smiley belongs to the world of espionage, the books work like detective stories; le Carré was a devoted [Sherlock Holmes](https://www.edgepedia.org/sherlock-holmes) fan, and one account calls Smiley "a Sherlock Holmes of the spook world."[5](https://www.countrylife.co.uk/luxury/art-and-antiques/forget-bond-the-understated-george-smiley-is-fictions-greatest-spy) • [7](https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2020/dec/15/how-john-le-carre-changed-television-and-paved-the-way-for-box-set-culture)
## The novels
Le Carré wrote nine Smiley novels over six decades.[2](https://lecarrecast.com/george-smiley-books-in-order/) In publication order they are *Call for the Dead* (1961), *A Murder of Quality* (1962), *The Spy Who Came in from the Cold* (1963), *The Looking Glass War* (1965), *Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy* (1974), *[The Honourable Schoolboy](https://www.edgepedia.org/the-honourable-schoolboy)* (1977), *Smiley's People* (1979), *The Secret Pilgrim* (1990), and *A Legacy of Spies* (2017).[2](https://lecarrecast.com/george-smiley-books-in-order/) The early books establish the character: *Call for the Dead* opens with a chapter titled "A Brief History of George Smiley," effectively a biography, and *A Murder of Quality* casts him as a sleuth in a satirical story of an elite private school.[9](https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/john-le-carre-appreciation/2020/12/14/d34bf484-3e3c-11eb-9453-fc36ba051781_story.html) • [10](https://www.deadgoodbooks.co.uk/george-smiley-books/)
The Karla trilogy forms the core of the series. In *Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy*, Smiley is brought out of retirement to lead the search for a Soviet mole inside the service after a first effort to unmask the double agent fails.[11](https://theweek.com/culture-life/film/best-spy-movies-39-steps-manchurian-candidate-three-days-condor-black-bag) In *Smiley's People* (1979) he deals a decisive blow against Soviet counterintelligence by forcing Karla to defect.[6](https://www.cia.gov/resources/csi/static/The-Tourist-Trilogy.pdf) *A Legacy of Spies* (2017) returned to the character 27 years after his previous appearance, and asked readers to accept the mental acuity of a character who, by reader calculations, should be more than 100 years old.[12](https://elpais.com/cultura/2017/03/07/actualidad/1488915087_983920.html) • [3](https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/john-le-carre-nick-harkaway-karlas-choice-b2634302.html)
## Real-life models
Le Carré, who wrote under the pen name while working in intelligence as David Cornwell, revealed in a 1999 BBC radio interview that Smiley was based on two men: a spy in MI5, the British national intelligence agency le Carré once worked for, and his former Oxford University lecturer.[13](https://www.deseret.com/1999/2/8/19422799/author-reveals-who-inspired-spy-novel-character/) The novelist John Bingham, Lord Clanmorris (1908–88), whose intelligence career overlapped with Cornwell's, is the model most often identified; Bingham encouraged Cornwell to write, helped him get taken on at the publishers Gollancz, and served as one of the principal models for Smiley.[4](https://www.latimes.com/style/la-bkw-weinman23dec23-story.html) • [14](https://bura.brunel.ac.uk/bitstream/2438/26200/5/FullText.pdf) Bingham himself felt used: in a 2000 essay le Carré wrote that, as far as Bingham was concerned, "I was a literary defector who had dragged the good name of the Service through the mud."[4](https://www.latimes.com/style/la-bkw-weinman23dec23-story.html)
## Adaptations
Smiley has been played by a succession of actors over six decades. Rupert Davies played him in Martin Ritt's 1965 film *The Deadly Affair*, an adaptation of *Call for the Dead* in which the character was renamed Charles Dobbs because Paramount owned the rights to the name "George Smiley."[5](https://www.countrylife.co.uk/luxury/art-and-antiques/forget-bond-the-understated-george-smiley-is-fictions-greatest-spy) Alec Guinness defined the role in the BBC's *Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy* (1979) and *Smiley's People* (1982), series whose deliberate pacing was later seen as a forerunner of box-set television; Guinness borrowed the umbrella-swinging mannerism of Sir Maurice Oldfield, the retired head of MI6, after le Carré arranged a lunch between them.[7](https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2020/dec/15/how-john-le-carre-changed-television-and-paved-the-way-for-box-set-culture) • [5](https://www.countrylife.co.uk/luxury/art-and-antiques/forget-bond-the-understated-george-smiley-is-fictions-greatest-spy) [Denholm Elliott](https://www.edgepedia.org/denholm-elliott) played him in a 1991 television *A Murder of Quality*, and [Gary Oldman](https://www.edgepedia.org/gary-oldman) in Tomas Alfredson's 2011 film remake, a performance le Carré admired enough to keep a photograph of in costume on a bookcase.[5](https://www.countrylife.co.uk/luxury/art-and-antiques/forget-bond-the-understated-george-smiley-is-fictions-greatest-spy) It was announced in 2025 that [Matthew Macfadyen](https://www.edgepedia.org/matthew-macfadyen) will play Smiley in a new television series.[5](https://www.countrylife.co.uk/luxury/art-and-antiques/forget-bond-the-understated-george-smiley-is-fictions-greatest-spy)
## Continuation by Nick Harkaway
Le Carré passed away in 2020, aged 89, and left behind a message in which he asked his family, who would look after his estate, to keep his books alive and bring them to fresh audiences.[3](https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/john-le-carre-nick-harkaway-karlas-choice-b2634302.html) His youngest son, the novelist Nick Harkaway, wrote *Karla's Choice*, published in 2024 and billed as "a John le Carré novel."[3](https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/john-le-carre-nick-harkaway-karlas-choice-b2634302.html) Harkaway explains in the introduction that there were always supposed to be more Smiley books, but that his father found the character difficult to write after watching Guinness's performance.[3](https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/john-le-carre-nick-harkaway-karlas-choice-b2634302.html) The novel is set in 1963, in the gap between *The Spy Who Came in from the Cold* and *Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy*, when Smiley is a fifty-something recently retired from the Circus and dragged back in for one last investigation.[5](https://www.countrylife.co.uk/luxury/art-and-antiques/forget-bond-the-understated-george-smiley-is-fictions-greatest-spy) • [3](https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/john-le-carre-nick-harkaway-karlas-choice-b2634302.html) It was an instant bestseller, gave Smiley's wife Ann more space and voice than in the earlier books, and has a planned sequel.[5](https://www.countrylife.co.uk/luxury/art-and-antiques/forget-bond-the-understated-george-smiley-is-fictions-greatest-spy) • [15](https://apnews.com/article/02f14ac19e45aaf9bafbdb31624c7ceb)
## References
1. [George Smiley (character), Fanlore](https://www.fanlore.org/wiki/George_Smiley_%28character%29)
2. [George Smiley Novels in Order, The le Carré Cast](https://lecarrecast.com/george-smiley-books-in-order/)
3. [Karla's Choice by Nick Harkaway: Can John le Carré's son successfully bring back iconic spy George Smiley?, The Independent](https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/john-le-carre-nick-harkaway-karlas-choice-b2634302.html)
4. [Smiley's model, Los Angeles Times](https://www.latimes.com/style/la-bkw-weinman23dec23-story.html)
5. [Forget Bond, the understated George Smiley is fiction's greatest spy, Country Life](https://www.countrylife.co.uk/luxury/art-and-antiques/forget-bond-the-understated-george-smiley-is-fictions-greatest-spy)
6. [Studies in Intelligence 56:4, The Tourist Trilogy, CIA Center for the Study of Intelligence](https://www.cia.gov/resources/csi/static/The-Tourist-Trilogy.pdf)
7. [How John Le Carré changed television and paved the way for box-set culture, The Guardian](https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2020/dec/15/how-john-le-carre-changed-television-and-paved-the-way-for-box-set-culture)
8. [On John le Carré's Circus novels, Gotham Calling](https://www.gothamcalling.com/john-le-carres-circus-novels/)
9. [John le Carré appreciation, The Washington Post](https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/john-le-carre-appreciation/2020/12/14/d34bf484-3e3c-11eb-9453-fc36ba051781_story.html)
10. [John Le Carre's George Smiley Books, Series Guide, Dead Good Books](https://www.deadgoodbooks.co.uk/george-smiley-books/)
11. [The 8 best spy movies of all time, The Week](https://theweek.com/culture-life/film/best-spy-movies-39-steps-manchurian-candidate-three-days-condor-black-bag)
12. [John le Carré recupera a su espía George Smiley en su nueva novela, El País](https://elpais.com/cultura/2017/03/07/actualidad/1488915087_983920.html)
13. [Author reveals who inspired spy-novel character, Deseret News](https://www.deseret.com/1999/2/8/19422799/author-reveals-who-inspired-spy-novel-character/)
14. [Full text, Brunel University research repository](https://bura.brunel.ac.uk/bitstream/2438/26200/5/FullText.pdf)
15. [Nick Harkaway steps into his father John le Carré's footsteps with spy thriller 'Karla's Choice', AP News](https://apnews.com/article/02f14ac19e45aaf9bafbdb31624c7ceb)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Literature and written works › Creative written works and worlds › Prose fiction › Novel series and sagas › Crime, mystery, and thriller novel series*
*Initially written Sep 17, 2026 · Reviewed: Sep 30, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*
License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license