Shellhouse Books

Faber, 1989. 1st edition. Hardcover. Fine black boards with silver spine lettering, extremely clean white pages, in a fine dustjacket, absolutely no fading to the spine, not price-clipped. Flat-signed by the author. An extremely attractive first impression of the author's best-known novel, about the repressed memories of an ageing English butler, Stevens. Winner of the Booker Prize, made into the memorable film with Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson, and contributing in no small part to the award of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2017 and then to a knighthood in 2018.

Gollancz, 1963. 1st edition. Hardback. Double signed to the title page as John Le Carre and in his real name as David Cornwell, unusual thus. Very nice blue boards with gilt spine lettering, pages a little toned as usual but very clean and tidy, just some minuscule fox spots to the front block, a few margins and the gutter between two late pages, with new endpapers. The dustjacket is very near fine, slightly darkened at the spine, not price-clipped, the cream rear panel slightly rubbed. Le Carre's most famous novel, set in the Cold War, completely re-imagined the world of international espionage - 'a shivery masterpiece in disillusionment and the art of information withheld' ( D.Telegraph). A very nice first impression, especially with the two signatures, scarce thus.