A very good copy, but for fading to the jacket spine, with a presentation inscription on the front free endpaper “For David - One more for the shelf This old tale Written by a young man Still youthful enough to know the purity of wrath. Bill Manchester. Boston 7.XII.87”. The inscription dates from Cornwell’s visit to the East Coast of the USA “fixing American characters” (Tim Cornwell in A Private Spy) for The Russia House. Manchester was himself a rather le Carré character, self-mythologising and brilliant, claiming unfeasible feats of concentration (writing for three days non stop, and awarding himself rather more military medals than he actually got. This is a re-issue of his first novel written under the spell of Mencken and Liebling.
From the library of David Cornwell aka John Le Carré.
Omitted in error from Maggs Bros. Ltd., Catalogue 1526, John Le Carré: Books from The Library of Jane and David Cornwell at Tregiffian.
