Editing John le Carré (section)

==Early life and education==
David John Moore Cornwell was born on 19 October 1931 in [[Poole]], Dorset, England, son of<ref name=BBC_obit/><ref name=Guardian_Homberger/> Ronald Thomas Archibald (Ronnie) Cornwell (1905–1975),<ref>[[General Register Office|GRO]] Register of Births: Dec 1905 5a 231 Poole – Ronald Thomas A. Cornwell</ref><ref>{{Cite news|date=15 August 2011|title=Why John le Carré's father went to jail (and his links to Dorset)|work=Daily Echo [Bournemouth Echo] |url=https://www.bournemouthecho.co.uk/news/9196356.why-le-carres-father-went-to-jail/|access-date=26 October 2022}}</ref> and Olive Moore Cornwell (née Glassey, 1906–1989). His older brother, [[Anthony Cornwell|Tony]] (1929–2017), was an advertising executive and [[county cricket]]er (for Dorset), who later lived in the United States.<ref>{{Cite news|last=Lelyveld|first=Joseph|author-link=Joseph Lelyveld|url=https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/99/03/21/specials/lecarre-toughest.html|title=Le Carré's Toughest Case|work=[[The New York Times Magazine]]|date=16 March 1986|access-date=30 January 2020|archive-date=28 October 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181028033818/https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/99/03/21/specials/lecarre-toughest.html|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news|last1=Gwinn|first1=Mary Ann|date=25 March 1999|url=https://archive.seattletimes.com/archive/?date=19990325&slug=2951363|title=Scoundrels and Sons – Author John Le Carre Digs Deep in His Own Past for the Themes of His Work|work=[[The Seattle Times]]|access-date=30 January 2020|archive-date=14 December 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201214015939/https://archive.seattletimes.com/archive/?date=19990325&slug=2951363|url-status=live}}</ref> His younger half-sister was the actress [[Charlotte Cornwell]] (1949–2021), and his younger half-brother, [[Rupert Cornwell]] (1946–2017), was a former [[Washington, D.C.|Washington]] bureau chief for ''[[The Independent]]''.<ref name="indy">{{Cite news|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/rupert-cornwell/|work=The Independent|title=Rupert Cornwell|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140910091603/http://www.independent.co.uk/biography/rupert-cornwell|archive-date=10 September 2014|url-status=dead|access-date=2 February 2019}}</ref><ref name="time">{{Cite magazine|url=http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,958645,00.html|title=Espionage: The Perfect Spy Story|magazine=[[Time (magazine)|Time]]|date=25 September 1989|access-date=14 December 2020}} {{subscription required}}</ref> Cornwell had little early memory of his mother, who had left their family home when he was five years old. His maternal uncle was [[Liberal Party (UK)|Liberal]] MP [[Alec Glassey]].<ref name="scholarlinguist"/> When Cornwell was 21 years old, Glassey gave him the address in Ipswich where his mother was living; mother and son reunited at Ipswich railway station, at her written invitation, following Cornwell's initial letter of reconciliation.<ref name = Brennan/><ref>{{Cite web|last=Lawson|first=Mark|year=2008|title=Mark Lawson Talks to John Le Carre BBC FOUR|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00dwcp6|access-date=31 May 2021|website=BBC iPlayer}}</ref>

Cornwell's father — who escaped from his "orthodox but repressive upbringing"<ref>{{Cite web |date=2 April 2011 |title=What does John Le Carre have to hide? |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/8422000/What-does-John-Le-Carre-have-to-hide.html |access-date=13 June 2024 |website=The Telegraph |language=en}}</ref> as son of "a respectable nonconformist bricklayer who became a house builder and mayor of Poole"<ref>{{Cite news |last=Homberger |first=Eric |date=14 December 2020 |title=John le Carré obituary |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/dec/14/john-le-carre-obituary |access-date=13 June 2024 |work=The Guardian |language=en-GB |issn=0261-3077}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=15 December 2020 |title=Cornwell, David John Moore (h 48) – John le Carré |url=https://oldshirburnian.org.uk/obituaries/cornwell-david-john-moore-h-48-john-le-carre/ |access-date=13 June 2024 |website=The Old Shirburnian Society |language=en-GB}}</ref> — had been jailed for [[insurance fraud]] and was a known associate of the [[Kray twins]]. The family was continually in debt. The father–son relationship has been described as "difficult".<ref name="Brennan">{{cite news|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/8422000/What-does-John-Le-Carre-have-to-hide.html |title=What Does John Le Carré Have to Hide?|first=Zoe|last=Brennan|work=[[The Daily Telegraph]]|date=2 April 2011|access-date=14 December 2020|archive-date=18 November 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111118040522/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/8422000/What-does-John-Le-Carre-have-to-hide.html|url-status=live }}</ref> ''The Guardian'' reported that Le Carré recalled that he had been "beaten up by his father and grew up mostly starved of affection after his mother abandoned him at the age of five".<ref name="Luke"/> Rick Pym, a scheming con man and the father of ''[[A Perfect Spy]]'' protagonist Magnus Pym, was based on Ronnie. When his father died in 1975, Cornwell paid for a memorial funeral service but did not attend, a plot point repeated in ''A Perfect Spy''.<ref name="Brennan"/>

Cornwell's schooling began at [[St Andrew's School, Pangbourne|St Andrew's Preparatory School]], near [[Pangbourne]], Berkshire, and continued at [[Sherborne School]].<ref name=":0">{{Cite web|title=Cornwell, David John Moore, (John Le Carré), (19 Oct. 1931–12 Dec. 2020), writer|url=https://www.ukwhoswho.com/view/10.1093/ww/9780199540884.001.0001/ww-9780199540884-e-11935|access-date=15 April 2021|website=WHO'S WHO & WHO WAS WHO|language=en|doi=10.1093/ww/9780199540884.013.u11935|isbn=978-0-19-954088-4}}</ref> He grew unhappy with the typically harsh [[English public school]] regime of the time and disliked his disciplinarian housemaster. He left Sherborne early to study foreign languages at the [[University of Bern]] from 1948 to 1949.<ref name="observer">{{Cite news |url=https://www.theguardian.com/theobserver/2009/nov/01/profile-john-le-carre |title=Observer Profile: John le Carré: A Man of Great Intelligence |work=The Observer |date=1 November 2009 |access-date=4 March 2010 |last=Anthony |first=Andrew |archive-date=18 August 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170818173635/https://www.theguardian.com/theobserver/2009/nov/01/profile-john-le-carre |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name=":0" /> In 1950, he was called up for [[National Service Act 1948|National Service]] and served in the [[Intelligence Corps (United Kingdom)|Intelligence Corps]] of the [[British Army]] garrisoned in [[Allied-occupied Austria]], working as a German language interrogator of people who had crossed the [[Iron Curtain]] to the West. In 1952, he returned to England to study at [[Lincoln College, Oxford]], where he worked covertly for the Security Service, [[MI5]], spying on [[Far-left politics in the United Kingdom|far-left]] groups for information about possible [[History of Soviet espionage|Soviet agents]]. During his studies, he was a member of [[The Gridiron Club (Oxford University)|The Gridiron Club]] and a college dining society known as [[List of University of Oxford dining clubs|The Goblin Club]].<ref name="observer"/>

When his father was declared bankrupt in 1954, Cornwell left Oxford to teach at [[Millfield Preparatory School]];<ref name="scholarlinguist">{{Cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/1993/jul/17/crimebooks|title=Scholar, linguist, story-teller, spy...|date=17 July 1993|work=The Guardian|access-date=3 July 2017|archive-date=9 September 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170909095425/https://www.theguardian.com/books/1993/jul/17/crimebooks|url-status=live}}</ref> however, a year later, he returned to Oxford, and graduated in 1956 with a First-Class degree in Modern Languages with a [[German Literature]] concentration. He then taught French and German at [[Eton College]] for two years, before becoming an MI5 officer in 1958.<ref name=":0" />