The dozen known mistresses of John le Carré are “only the tip of the iceberg,” says his biographer.
Adam Sisman revealed details of the former MI6 spy’s affairs in a book last year and said many more women had come forward since its publication.
Using different names to book hotels and using shelters, his mistresses included a woman 40 years younger than him, his friend’s wife and his son’s au pair.
Out of respect for his wife Jane, the spy author – real name David Cornwell – asked his biographer not to detail his infidelity during his lifetime.
The official biography was published in 2015, and after the author’s death in 2020, Sisman wrote The Secret Life of John le Carré.
Speaking at the Oxford Literary Festival, the biographer said: “I’m sure this is just the tip of the iceberg.” The telegraph reported.
John le Carré’s dozen known mistresses are “only the tip of the iceberg”
Out of respect for his wife Jane, the spy author – real name David Cornwell – asked his biographer not to detail his infidelity during his lifetime. Photographed together in 2001.
Sisman said David met one of these mistresses in September 1982, a young woman in her 20s. Sue Dawson, who lived in Chelsea, abridged books to release them on audio cassettes. She then described herself as “generally ready for anything”
The official biography was published in 2015, and after the author’s death in 2020, Sisman wrote The Secret Life of John le Carré
The newspaper reported that Sisman said he identified 12 mistresses in the book, but “I think there were at least a dozen more.”
He said several other women have come forward since the book was published, adding “they just kept popping up.”
He said: “I talked to David about it, and he would usually put his head in his hands and say, ‘Oh, no.’
“I said, ‘We can’t ignore this aspect of your life,'” the Telegraph reported.
John le Carré reportedly said he didn’t want to “humiliate” his wife Jane, to which Sisman responded, “It’s a little late for that.”
The author used versions of his mistresses in his novels as characters, his biographer said.
Jane died two months after her husband’s death, aged 89.
The marriage of spy novelist David Cornwell – better known around the world by his pen name, John le Carré – to his second wife Jane has often been publicly described as an ideal partnership. “I think we’re more monogamous than most couples,” he once told Sisman.
His first marriage collapsed after the Bonn affair in the early 1960s, while he was writing his groundbreaking novel The Spy Who Came in from the Cold.
When Sue asked him what he would do if Jane found out about their affair, his response was unequivocal: “I would deny you – I would deny you completely,” said his biographer.
The author used versions of his mistresses in his novels as characters, his biographer said.
After marrying Jane, his second wife, he tried to persuade the ex-model to move in with them as a ménage à trois, claiming her “contribution” was important to his work.
So many women shared his bed that a neighbor in west Cornwall recorded more than 50 conquests.
Writing previously in the Mail, his biographer said: “Most of them were younger than him, some much younger. One of them was the au pair who looked after her youngest son. With another woman, almost 30 years his junior, he had two affairs: the first in the mid-1980s, the second 14 years later. His last story, to my knowledge, took place with a journalist more than 40 years his junior.
“When David decided to seduce a woman, he pursued her relentlessly. A handsome man even in his late fifties, he could be scintillating company, witty and attentive, with a fund of entertaining stories and a deep reservoir of experience to draw on.
“He wrote them erotic letters, making them feel missed and wanted. He inspired those with literary ambitions to imagine that they could write together. He had the ability to make people love him even when they knew they shouldn’t, and to want to protect him and share his life.
His biographer had previously claimed that the author “played spy” in his affairs.
“They required considerable expertise, with codes, dead mail boxes and safe houses – apartments where he could go and supposedly write without being disturbed, in reality places where he could take women without fear of ‘be discovered,’ he wrote in the Mail.
He added: “Sympathetic male friends were enlisted to act as ‘cut-offs’, receiving mail which might otherwise be intercepted by Jane. He arranged meetings abroad, booked hotels under assumed names (usually “Cosgrove” or “Cosgrave”), used a dedicated travel agent (a former intelligence colleague, or so he thought). is what he said to one of his lovers) and listed women in his address book. under code names.
Sisman said David met one of these mistresses in September 1982, a young woman in her 20s. Sue Dawson, who lived in Chelsea, abridged books to release them on audio cassettes. She described herself then as “generally ready for anything”.
When she asked him what he would do if Jane found out about their affair, his response was unequivocal: “I would deny you – I would deny you completely,” said his biographer.