London: Secker and Warburg, 1995

8vo, pp. 233. Original black boards lettered in gilt to spine. Green endpapers. Illustrated dust jacket. Light age toning to text block, otherwise a fine copy in a fine dust jacket.

First edition, INSCRIBED BY BANVILLE TO HIS EDITOR: ‘To John Blackwell, a great editor, John Banville 13.ii.1995’. The third book in the Frames trilogy.

John Blackwell [1937-1997] joined Secker and Warburg in the late 1960s, when the imprint was still an independent company run by Fredric Warburg himself. He was a constant presence through the company's innumerable corporate takeovers, mergers and changes of managing director. He was Banville’s’s editor at Secker and Warburg, where much of his work was published. As well as Banville, Blackwell was literary midwife to Secker luminaries J. M. Coetzee, Malcolm Bradbury, Tom McGuane, Tom Sharpe and Louis de Bernieres, among many others.

A fine copy, with an association to match.