British Nostalgia for Espionage Goes Postal

It’s hard to say who pines more for the good old days of great power intrigue and cloak and dagger espionage – the British, who knighted the spy Oleg Gordievsky, or the Russians, who posthumously awarded nuclear spy and American turncoat George Koval. What better year than 2008 for the British Royal Mail to launch a series of stamps dedicated to our most celebrated fictional spy icon, James Bond? According to the announcement, “These landscape stamp illustrates six books – featuring four different cover editions of each – beginning with the Jonathan Cape first edition of Casino Royale. The other books illustrated are Dr No, Goldfinger, Diamonds are Forever, For your Eyes Only and From Russia with Love. This is, undoubtedly, a collection to get both shaken and stirred over.” If only these kinds of stories were pure fiction, the men from the real MI5 complain. Read about it here and here, see examples below…