London: Alison Press/Secker & Warburg, 1985

8vo. pp. 242. Original dark blue boards, lettered in gilt to spine. Printed dust jacket, author's photographic portrait to rear panel. Age-toning to text block, otherwise a fine copy in a fine dust jacket.

First edition, INSCRIBED BY HOOD TO HIS LITERARY EDITOR JOHN BLACKWELL: 'For John Blackwell from Christopher Hood.' Hood had five comic novels published between 1979 and 1990; this is the fourth of them.

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 Tom Sharpe's editor, and was literary midwife to J. M. Coetzee, Michael Moorcock, John Banville, Tom McGuane, Malcolm Bradbury and Louis de Bernieres, among many others.

A fine copy.