U.N.C.L.E. (United Network Command for Law Enforcement) is/was an international law enforcement organization whose exploits were chronicled in two 1960s American television series, The Man from UNCLE and The Girl from UNCLE. One of its chief executives was Alexander Waverly while some of its top operatives included Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin as well as April Dancer and Mark Slate. It often faced up against the criminal organization known only as THRUSH. Sir John Raleigh had taken over as head of UNCLE by the early 1980s (Sir John bears a suspicious resemblence to British secret agent John Steed).
The Man from UNCLE was blessed with a major line of spin-off novels, perhaps the first such ever published. Many included crossovers with other sets of characters - for example, The Dagger Affair links the criminal organisation of Professor Moriarty to THRUSH - as described in Wold Newton scholar Lou Mougin's article The Continuing Crossovers Affair (see below).
Philip José Farmer himself did not incorporate The Man from UNCLE into his Wold Newton writings, but a letter to the Baker Street Journal in 1972 indicates his familiarity with the series.
External Links:
- Wikipedia Article on U.N.C.L.E
- The UNCLE Chronology.by Mark Ellis and Win Eckert
- The Continuing Crossovers Affair by Lou Mougin
- Letters to Baker Street