London: Secker & Warburg, 1977

8vo, pp. 254. Original black boards, lettered in silver to spine. Illustrated dust jacket. Top edge just a little dusty, otherwise a fine copy in a fine dust jacket.

First edition, LENGTHILY INSCRIBED BY HONE OVER TWO PAGES TO HIS LITERARY EDITOR AT SECKER AND WARBURG: 'for John Blackwell, who edited this book (my, how he did...). Very many thanks. 'Without you'...etc. (in this case almost certainly true). Joseph Hone October 1977 [arrow] PTO [overleaf] "and not forgetting (remembering the dedication in 'Third Man') so many lunchtimes and afternoons and evenings in the old Nellie Deane where this story was first mooted and old Hackett and dull Tyson first strode upon the scene..." Thanks for listening to it all'.

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.