Line of Attack.

London: Hamish Hamilton. 1988. 4to. Original cloth and dustwrapper; pp. 320; fine. First edition, with an original cartoon of Margaret Thatcher in black ink signed by Scarfe to ffep.This compendium of Scarfe's cartoons goes back over twenty years and summarizes his incisive view of contemporary events, people and politics. The original cartoon of Margaret Thatcher is a wonderful, off the cuff portrait of his favourite subject, with whom Scarfe had a love-hate relationship. Scarfe himself said in an interview with the BBC in 2013: "I was not a fan of Mrs Thatcher, but she was undoubtedly a strong woman. In the case of caricature, she had a character that comes through - I could always draw her as aggressive or cutting or biting, like an axe or scissors or something that was really, really attacking. It's a bit like in theatre, where the villains are the best ones - they're the ones everyone wants to see. No one cares about bland heroes." According to Sir Bernard Ingham, her private secretary, Thatcher was supremely unaffected: "I don't think she saw much of them at all, thank God. She did not expect to be portrayed sympathetically" (Kinghorn, "Gerald Scarfe's controversial Margaret Thatcher cartoons on show", published 14 March 2015, BBC online).As much as he could not abide by her politics, Scarfe's vision of Thatcher became one of the most iconic images of 1980s Britain and the signature that underscored his reputation. Exhibitions and books have been devoted to Scarfe's depictions of Thatcher. The original cartoons are sought after at auction and some are held by the National Portrait Gallery.…