SOURCE: "Erskine Childers: The Intrepid Spy," in Literary Agents: The Novelist as Spy, Basil Blackwell, 1987, pp. 4-14.

In the following essay, Masters observes how Childers's background as a yachtsman as well as his military and political experience contributed to the composition of The Riddle of the Sands.

'One of those romantic gentlemen that one reads of in sixpenny magazines, with a Kodak in his tie-pin, a sketch-book in the lining of his coat, and a selection of disguises in his hand luggage.'

An early twentieth-century Englishman's idea of a spy, from Erskine Childers' The Riddle of the Sands

Erskine Childers was a spy by chance—a private spy, not a member of any Intelligence organization. He was a man who observed, and who then used his observations to write a successful work of fiction. He did not try to alert the authorities in any official way, but...