Simon Winder, publishing director at Penguin Press, says: "The Ipcress File suddenly made the spy story new – hip, dishevelled, patched together. It is as essential to the early 60s as Mary Quant or A Hard Day"s Night. Until Harry Palmer wandered on to the scene, the traditions of the English spy novel were essentially upper-class ones, with John Buchan, Ian Fleming and John le Carré the masters of the genre. Deighton transformed this assumption."