Deighton's The Ipcress File follows the general tradition of the popular subgenre of the spy novel invented by the American James Fenimore Cooper with his The Spy (1821). In his novel, Cooper tries to compete with Sir Walter Scott's popular historical romances (for instance, Ivanhoe, 1820) by describing a romantic adventure that takes place in the midst of American society during a phase of the American Revolution, and it proved a great success.

As for Deighton, his work also follows the strong British tradition of the spy stories of Childers, Oppenheim, Buchan, Greene, Maugham, Ambler, and Fleming.

From Casino Royale (1952) to Goldfinger (1959) Ian Fleming's James Bond would become a commercial institution of considerable significance, hugely popular in the following decades, whether in the form of books, motion pictures, or television screenings. Despite Bond's reputation as a modern technocrat, inside he feels nostalgia for a past close to that...