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Portrait image of Victor Canning Photo: ANL/REX / TT (1956)

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Canning, Victor

Victor Canning was a British author of humorous adventure stories and thrillers. He was born in Plymouth, Devon. At the outbreak of the First World War, while his father was doing his military service, he went with his mother and siblings to live with his uncle in Calstock, a few miles north of Plymouth. This was where Canning fell in love with the English countryside, which features prominently...

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Literary figures

George Smiley

Gender: Male

He is rather fat, has been said to liken a toad, and is married to the beautiful and forever unfaithful Lady Ann Sercombe. Besides which, George Smiley is a lethal agent with the British Secret Service in a suite of novels by John Le Carré. Before retiring, he also becomes the director of the secret service. In some of the early books, he is however more active as a detective.

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