ABSTRACT
To an unprecedented degree, the world of espionage powerfully grasped the twentieth-century imagination. As with detective fiction, which can be seen not so much as a parallel literature but rather as the seedbed of the espionage novel, Britain played a central role in the new field. The central figure in the fictional world of British intelligence is James Bond, because his success has led not only to longevity but also to a character that has spanned the worlds of novels and films.
