JOHN LE CARRE: THE BIOGRAPHY.

CANADA,8vo HB+dw/dj,1st edn.[Complete number line 2 4 6 8 9 7 5 3 1.Published simultaneously in the UK by Bloomsbury Publishing and also as an eBook.] FINE/FINE. No owner inscrptn and no price-clip to dw/dj.Bright,crisp, clean,glossy laminated,colour photographic illustrated dw/dj, with white lettering; with negligible shelf-wear or creasing to edges and corners - no nicks or tears present. Top+fore-edges bright and clean - a single small black ink spot to bottom page edges; contents bright,tight,clean, solid and sound - virtually pristine - no dog-ear reading creases to any pages' corner tips,appears unread - apart from my own collation.Publisher's bright,crisp,clean,sharp-cornered,original plain dark blue cloth boards with bright, crisp,blocked silver gilt letters to spine/backstrip and immaculate plain white endpapers.UK,8vo HB+dw/dj,1st edn,xii-xxpp+2-652pp [paginated] includes acknowledgements,author's introduction, 25 chapters, 32pp contemporary b/w autobiographical photographs in 2 blocks of 16pp apiece,between pp172/3 and pp 460/1 respectively,notes,a select bibliography and an index; plus [unpaginated] half-title+title pages,a dedication,an epigram,and contents list/table.
Over half a century since 'The Spy Who Came in from the Cold' - see my book ID rja1642 for a UK,8vo HB+dw/dj,1st edn,1st issue - made John le Carre a worldwide,bestselling sensation,David Cornwell,the man behind the pseudonym, remains an enigma.He has quarried his own life for his writing,intertwining fact and fiction,his novels offer tantalizing glimpses of their author,but little has actually been known until now about the master of the espionage novel and one of the world's most successful writers. In Cornwell's lonely childhood Adam Sisman uncovers the origins of the themes of love, abandonment and betrayal that dominate le Carre's great fiction: the departure of his mother when he was five,followed by 'sixteen hugless years' in the dubious care of his father,a charming, energetic serial-seducer,a 'totally incomprehemsible' man who could 'put a hand on your shoulder and the other in your pocket,both gestures equally sincere.' And in Cornwell's adult life - from recruitment by both MI5 and MI6,through the secretive world of Intelligence,to marriage and family life - Sisman explores the idea of espionage and its significance in human terms; the moral and pragmatic balancing acts; the demands of loyalty and responsibility; the extent to which betrayal is acceptable in exchange for love; the endless need for forgiveness, especially from oneself. Written with exclusive access to David Cornwell himself, to his private archive and to the most important people in his life - family,friends, enemies,intelligence ex-colleagues and ex-lovers - and featuring a wealth of previously unseen photographic material,Adam Sisman's brilliantly insightful,revealing biography brings in from the cold a man whose own life has been as complex and confounding and filled with treachery as any of his novels.'I'm a liar,' Cornwell has written. 'Born to lying,bred to it,trained to it by an industry that lies for a living, practised in it as a novelist.'
This is the definitive biography of a major writer,described by Ian McEwan as 'perhaps the most significant novelist of the second half of the twentieth century in Britain.'
See also book ID's rja429912 and rja702217 for 2 and 5 story omnibuses which include 'The Spy Who Came in from the Cold.' respectively. Want more le CARRE titles? For similar and other available titles - please search my MODERN FIRSTS2 and 1001 Book You Must Read Before You Die and SIGNED catalogues.
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