Books

First editions, presentation copies, inscribed by Le Carré to his friend Jerzy Pietrkiewicz and with Pietrkiewicz's library stamps. Pietrkiewicz was a Polish poet, novelist, and translator who emigrated to England during the Second World War, later becoming professor of Polish literature at King's College London. The second and third works are first impressions, while the first is a second impression. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is inscribed on the front free endpaper: "For Jerzy with love, David, alias John le Carré". The Honourable Schoolboy is signed on the title page and inscribed below the dedication: "and for Jerzy with affection & admiration, David". Smiley's People is signed on the copyright page and inscribed on the title "* for friendship / for Jerzy with deep affection and gratitude / from David 3 Feb 80. In the Hampstead Salon". It is unusual to encounter all three books inscribed to the same recipient. The trilogy saw the return of Le Carré's hero and master-spy George Smiley, almost ten years after the success of The Looking Glass War in 1965. Smiley is "an anti-Bond figure: dumpy, bespectacled, intellectual, mundane, and nearly invisible. In the Karla Trilogy... Le Carré perfects the novelistic form of the realist spy" (Prévost, p. 197). Provenance: from the library of Charlie Watts (1941-2021), the drummer of the Rolling Stones from 1963 until his death, with his posthumous bookplates. Three works, octavo. Original blue boards, titles to spines gilt. With dust jackets. Old newspaper clipping with article on Sir Maurice Oldfield loosely inserted in Smiley's People; Oldfield, MI6 director between 1973 and 1978, was one of Carré's models for the character of Smiley. Spine of The Honourable Schoolboy slightly faded at ends and with faint offsetting from jacket, otherwise all fine; jackets sunned at spine, that of The Honourable Schoolboy with short closed tear at foot, jackets unclipped; a fine set in near-fine jackets. Maxime Prévost, "Mythology and Diplomacy in Works by Ian Fleming and John le Carré", in Isabelle Daunais & Allan Hepburn, eds, Diplomacy and the Modern Novel, 2020.

The final novel of the Karla Trilogy, featuring spymaster George Smiley, who must bring a Cold War nemesis to justice.