Ten of the best: secret societies in literature

At the Guardian, John Mullan named ten of the best secret societies in literature.

One organization on his list:

Waste

Waste is a surreptitious postal organisation: We Await Silent Tristero's Empire. Obscure? Not if you read Thomas Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49, which features the centuries-old rivalry between two mail distribution companies. In this satire on paranoia (or paranoid satire?), Oedipa Maas, Pynchon's heroine, begins seeing the signs of Waste's covert activity all around her.

Read about all ten secret societies on Mullan's list.

--Marshal Zeringue