le Carré, John | First edition of the author's greatest work

le Carré, John

The Spy Who Came in from the Cold. London: Victor Gollancz Ltd, 1963

8vo (185 x 121 mm). Publisher's light blue cloth, spine gilt lettered; head and tail of spine bumped and sunned, spotting and browning to edges, board edges lightly rubbed and sunned. In the original printed dustjacket; stray pen mark to front panel, tiny nick at foot of spine, stray stains to rear panel, browning to edges of inside flaps.

First edition of the novel considered to be the author's masterpiece. Writing in Twentieth-Century Crime and Mystery Writers (London, 1980), John Snyder notes, "The Spy Who Came in from the Cold is still le Carré's cleanest job: compact in structure; deftly deceptive in the unfolding of its triple-cross; and painfully human in the characterizations of two victims of 'our' side's necessary but evil mission."