London: Cape, 1992

8vo, pp. 577. Original yellow boards, lettered in gilt to spine. Yellow endpapers. Illustrated dust jacket, author’s photographic portrait to rear flap. Light age toning to text block, otherwise a fine copy in a near fine dust jacket with just the lightest of wear to head of spine.

First edition, LENGTHILY AND AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED BY MOORCOCK TO HIS EDITOR JOHN BLACKWELL: ‘Unwin House. Dear John, first off the press or second, depending on what my copy is -- with gratitude, as always, for your scholarship and horse sense and all the other qualities that helped us get this wheezing and unwieldy old tub in to port. Only one more to go. Warmest regards, Mike 10th June ‘92’. ADDITIONALLY SIGNED TO TITLE PAGE. Volume Three of the Colonel Pyat quartet.

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.