Beat the Devil

Cockburn, Claud

ISBN 10: 0140033092 / ISBN 13: 9780140033090

Published by Penguin, Middlesex, 1971

About this Item

VG+, Edgewear, creases, browning. Comedy-thriller. Basis for the John Huston movie. Cover design by Bob Lawrie. Photos on request.

Seller Inventory # 036859

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Beat the Devil
• Publisher: Penguin, Middlesex
• Publication Date: 1971
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0140033092
• ISBN 13: 9780140033090
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Edition: First Penguin Edition
• Condition: Very Good +
• Seller catalogs:
  • Thrillers, Espionage & Suspense

About this title

Synopsis

This is the classic '50s noir novel that brought John Huston and Humphrey Bogart together for the last time in film. Published under the pseudonym James Helvick, this sophisticated comedy-thriller was in fact the work of Claud Cockburn, whose early career as a Communist agitator prompted his publisher to demand a pseudonym in the McCarthy years. Beat the Devil shows how effortlessly Cockburn moved from agitprop to elegant and witty fiction. Alexander Cockburn's introduction delves into the long-simmering debate over the real source of the movie's most famous lines. Was it Truman Capote, Anthony Veiller and Peter Viertel, Robert Morley, or Claud Cockburn himself?

About the Author

Claud Cockburn (1904-1981) was a renowned radical British journalist. Educated at Oxford University, he was a journalist with The Times, the British communist newspaper the Daily Worker (covering the Spanish Civil War), and his own antifascist newsletter The Week. He is the author of several novels and nonfiction titles Alexander Cockburn is a syndicated national columnist, whose work appears regularly in the Nation, NY Free Press, and LA Times, amongst others. Together with Jeffrey St. Clair, he is the editor of the online journal Alexander Cockburn is co-editor of the online journal Counterpunch and has authored and edited numerous books, including the best-selling Whiteout.