"DAVID CORNWELL AKA JOHN LE CARRÉ": FIRST EDITION OF THE SPY WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD, "A GENUINE MODERN VERSION OF TRAGEDY," SIGNED BY THE AUTHOR WITH BOTH HIS REAL NAME AND HIS PEN NAME

LE CARRE, John. The Spy Who Came in From the Cold. London: Victor Gollancz, 1963. Octavo, original blue cloth, original dust jacket. Housed in a custom half morocco clamshell box. $16,500.

First edition of this classic of the spy genre, boldly signed on the title page by Le Carré using both his real name and his pen name: "David Cornwell aka John Le Carré."

"In the tradition of Conrad, Maugham, and Greene, John Le Carré's realist spy novel is a form which represents a genuine modern version of tragedy… The Spy Who Came in From the Cold is still Le Carré's cleanest job: compact in structure, deftly deceptive in the unfolding of its triple-cross, and painfully human in the characterizations of two victims of 'our' side's necessary but evil mission" (Reilly, 933-34). "In a covert war later immortalized in John Le Carré's The Spy Who Came in From the Cold, [West and East German intelligence chiefs] conducted the battle of moles, infiltration, counter-infiltration, double agent and triple agent" (Volkman, Spies, 180). Winner of both the Gold Dagger award from the Crime Writers' Association and the Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America for best novel—the first novel ever to win both titles. On the 50th anniversary of the Dagger Awards in 2005, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold was awarded the "Dagger of Daggers," a one-time award given to the stand-out novel among all 50 winners over the history of the Crime Writers' Association to date.

Book with just a touch of fading to cloth at spine ends, dust jacket with minuscule rubs to corners, bright, clean and unfaded. An about-fine copy, quite uncommon and desirable doubly signed by the author using his given name as well as his pen name.