Chance to spy on le Carré's private papers in major Bodleian exhibition

Meticulous research and an academic's attention to detail are among insights into John le Carré's working methods that will be revealed in a major exhibition when the master of spy thrillers' private archive goes on display for the first time this autumn.

- Dalya Alberge

His cold-war-era espionage novels, including The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, have sold tens of millions of copies and inspired acclaimed films and television adaptations.

The Bodleian Libraries at the University of Oxford has announced an exhibition starting in October, titled John le Carré: Tradecraft, drawing on thousands of papers in his vast private archive, which it holds.

Le Carré, the pen name of David Cornwell, wanted the archive to be placed with his alma mater and, after his death in 2020 aged 89, it was officially donated to the nation through the acceptance-in-lieu scheme, preventing its loss overseas.

Referring to the author's greatest fictional character, the self-effacing, quintessentially English spymaster George Smiley, le Carré once said: "Oxford was Smiley's spiritual home, as it is mine."

Exhibits seen for the first time will include his copious notes on his characters, as well as sketches in which, like a film director, he visualised those individuals in the margins of his manuscripts.

His annotated manuscripts will show the extent to which he revised his novels repeatedly. In a draft for