The Spy Who Came in from the Cold >>>> A SUPERB SIGNED UK 50th ANNIVERSARY EDITION HARDBACK - FIRST PRINTING <<<<

John Le Carre

ISBN 10: 0141194537 / ISBN 13: 9780141194530

Published by Penguin, London, 2013

About this Item

A fine UK first edition, first printing hardback - in a fine & unclipped dustjacket fitted with a removable clear mylar sleeve - All my books are always securely packed with plenty of bubblewrap in professional boxes and promptly dispatched (within 2-3 days) - SIGNED BY JOHN LE CARRE - Pictures of the book are available upon request.

Seller Inventory # 001631

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Spy Who Came in from the Cold >>>> A SUPERB SIGNED UK 50th ANNIVERSARY EDITION HARDBACK - FIRST PRINTING <<<<
• Publisher: Penguin, London
• Publication Date: 2013
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0141194537
• ISBN 13: 9780141194530
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Printing: 1st Printing
• Condition: Fine
• Dust Jacket Condition: Fine
• Signed: Signed by Author(s)

About this title

Synopsis

Fiftieth Anniversary Edition, with material from the Archives and an Afterword by the author.

Review

It would be an international crime to reveal too much of the jeweled clockwork plot of Le Carré's first masterpiece, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold. But we are at liberty to disclose that Graham Greene called it the "finest spy story ever written," and that the taut tale concerns Alec Leamas, a British agent in early Cold War Berlin. Leamas is responsible for keeping the double agents under his care undercover and alive, but East Germans start killing them, so he gets called back to London by Control, his spy master. Yet instead of giving Leamas the boot, Control gives him a scary assignment: play the part of a disgraced agent, a sodden failure everybody whispers about. Control sends him back out into the cold--deep into Communist territory to checkmate the bad-guy spies on the other side. The political chessboard is black and white, but in human terms the vicinity of the Berlin Wall is a moral no-man's land, a gray abyss patrolled by pawns.

Le Carré beats most spy writers for two reasons. First, he knows what he's talking about, since he raced around working for British Intelligence while the Wall went up. He's familiar with spycraft's fascinations, but also with the fact that it leaves ideals shaken and emotions stirred. Second, his literary tone has deep autobiographical roots. Spying is about betrayal, and Le Carré was abandoned by his mother and betrayed by his father, a notorious con man. (They figure heavily in his novels Single & Single and A Perfect Spy.) In a world of lies, Le Carré writes the bitter truth: it's every man for himself. And may the best mask win. --Tim Appelo