The birth of the spy novel
MAUGHAM, W. Somerset. Ashenden or The British Agent. London: William Heinemann. 1928.
8vo. Original blue cloth lettered in gilt on spine and upper board; pp. [viii], 303; light wear to extremities, internally very clean and fresh.
First printing of the first edition. Considered one of the pioneering works of espionage fiction (based on the author's own experience during the Russian Revolution), this book exerted much influence on later generations of espionage novelists and was the basis of Hitchcock's 1936 film The Secret Agent.
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