Call for The Dead. London: Victor Gollancz, 1961. First Edition, First Issue. Pp, 192. Publisher’s red cloth boards (lightly faded), title lettered in gilt to spine. Off-setting to half-title & scattered foxing to margins of a number of the contents pages & to fore-edge. Faint ownership name to front pastedown. Overall a very good copy.

Le Carré’s first novel introduces the reader to the intricate shadow worlds of international espionage in the form of British Secret Service Agent George Smiley.

After the publication this novel and ‘A Murder of Quality’ (1962), both which received measured reviews and modest sales, Le Carré hit the big time with ‘The Spy Who Came in from the Cold’ published in 1963.