The Riddle of the Sands: showing its age but still enjoyable

Several years after The Riddle of the Sands was first published and became a bestseller, one of the first British spy cases came before the German courts – the so-called Brandon-Trench affair, named after the two Britons (correctly) convicted of spying. During the court case, one of the lawyers held up a copy of The Riddle of the Sands and asked the accused spies if they had read it. The parallels were obvious: the book, like reality, featured two bungling gentleman spies. The locations they were sniffing around were similar in fiction and reality, with Nodeney and Wangerooge featuring in both. However, whilst Brandon and Trench were convicted (one admitted to hearing of the book, the other to liking it so much they read it three times), the heroes of The Riddle of the Sands were successful, unearthing a secret anti-British German plot.

In the decades after its publication two wars took place between Britain and Germany, both heavily featuring action at sea and invasion scares, making the book seem eerily prescient. It also earned its place in literary history as the first modern espionage novel – there is action in the book, but it is principally about unravelling a mystery.

In other respects, the passage of time has treated the book less well – from the racism in the opening sentence through to the two main (male) characters and their attitude towards women and talking about women. Moreover, so many subsequent espionage books have appeared and the genre developed so much that this original work is rather overshadowed by its successors save for having been the first. There is little in the book that has not been done many, many times since – although the author shows a rare skill in getting the balance of nautical detail right: enough to give the book a real maritime flavour but not so much as to completely befuddle the landlubber reader.

The book’s intent was similar to that of more modern military fictions, such as General Sir John Hackett’s The Third World War – to spur politicians into actions to strengthen the country’s defences. It was not the only piece of fiction so intended but whilst William Le Queux’s works may have had more contemporary political impact, especially in spy scares (and aided by the Daily Mail serialisations steering the German invasion through locations with the highest Daily Mail sales), Erskine Childers’s The Riddle of the Sands has retained the higher literary reputation for it is still an enjoyable read.

If you like this, you might also be interested in Karel Capek’s War with the Newts and for more on spy stories, check out my podcast about five of the very best spy novels.

You can buy The Riddle of the Sands: A Record of Secret Service by Erskine Childers from Amazon here.