ABSTRACT
It is one of the paradoxes of the British intelligence tradition that whereas there is a convention, and now a criminal statute, to prevent intelligence officers from making unauthorised disclosures, more have done so in this country than anywhere else in the world. This paper is intended to be a survey of intelligence literature, concentrating on books published by British Security Service (MI5) and British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) officers.1 Its central argument is that, contrary to what has commonly been assumed, the British intelligence community has entered the public sphere often since its creation, primarily in the form of memoirs, fictionalised memoirs and classic spy fiction.2
