Outlaws and Spies

By reading two bodies of literature not normally read together – the outlaw literature and espionage literature – Conor McCarthy shows how these genres represent and critique the longstanding use of legal exclusion as a means of supporting state power. Texts discussed range from the medieval Robin Hood ballads, Shakespeare’s history plays, and versions of the Ned Kelly story to contemporary writing by John le Carré, Don DeLillo, Ciaran Carson and William Gibson.