Bernard Charles Newman (8 May 1897 – 19 February 1968) was a British author of over 100 books, both fiction and non-fiction. An historian, he was considered an authority on spies, but also wote travel books and on politics. His fiction included children's books, mystery novels and science fiction.
Bernard Newman was born in Ibstock, Leicestershire, in 1897. He was a great nephew of the 19th century author George Eliot. After having served in the secret services during the First World War, ending the war as a captain, he became a lecturer and passionate traveller, visiting over sixty countries during the Interbellum, many of those on bike. He gave some 2,000 lectures between 1928 and 1940 throughout Europe, meeting even Adolf Hitler. He started writing novels, gaining some recognition with his 1930 novel The Cavalry Went Through. From 1936 to 1938, he was the first chairman of the Society of Civil & Public Service Writers.
At the start of the Second World War, Newman was in France, witnessing the invasion by the Germans. For the next five years, he became a staff lecturer at the Ministry of Information and wrote patriotic British novels like Siegfried Spy and Death to the Fifth Column. The novel Secret Weapon featured Winston Churchill. In 1942, he was sent to Canada and the United States to lecture there on the British and the war. In Washington, he encountered President Roosevelt and lectured for senators and other high officials. He also was a guest in national and local radio broadcasts throughout the country. Returning to the United Kingdom in late 1942, he reversed his role and lectured throughout the country about America.
Bernard Newman was also considered an authority on spies, and wrote Epics of Espionage and the novel Spy. His 1945 novel Spy Catchers was praised as one of the best books ever on counter-espionage.
His science fiction novel The Blue Ants has been described by professor Paul Brian in his study Atomic War in Fiction as an "absurd classic of Sinophobia" and "perhaps the earliest example of a fictional Russo-Chinese nuclear war"
Bernard Newman was a Chevalier in the Légion d'honneur.