London: Savoy, 1992

8vo, pp. 146. Original dark green boards, lettered in gilt to spine. Purple endpapers. Illustrated dust jacket, photographic portrait of Moorcock to rear flap. A fine copy in a very near fine dust jacket with just the lightest of edgewear.

First edition, LENGTHILY INSCRIBED BY MICHAEL MOORCOCK TO JOHN BLACKWELL, EDITOR AT SECKER AND WARBURG: ‘27th August ‘92 Dear John, You might get a bit of pleasure out of this to say thanks for all your help and the pleasure of your company. We should be doing [Colonel] Pyat Oct 10 (if that’s a Sat.) at The Conservatory St Giles High St all being well. It’ll go down a treat in the provinces. Hope you can make it. All best, Mike.’ ADDITIONALLY SIGNED AT HALF-TITLE.

A series of interviews with Michael Moorcock conducted by Colin Greenland, seven long conversations about Moorcock’s writing method which took place in Oxford and London in 1990. Angela Carter’s introduction for this book was one of her last pieces of published writing before her death from cancer in 1992, at the age of fifty-one.

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 Moorcock’s editor at Secker and Warburg, where much of his work was published. As well as Moorcock, Blackwell was literary midwife to Secker luminaries J. M. Coetzee, Malcolm Bradbury, John Banville, Tom McGuane, Tom Sharpe and Louis de Bernieres, among many others.

The inscription refers to a speaking engagement at which Moorcock was promoting his Colonel Pyat books. The event was filmed by Moorcock’s publisher Savoy Books: Peter Ackroyd and Andrea Dworkin can be seen in attendance, with Moorcock’s then agent Giles Gordon propping up the bar.