The Looking Glass War.

John Le Carre's The Looking Glass War; inscribed by him to American journalist William Safire

The Looking Glass War.

LE CARRE, John. [William Safire].

Item Number: 127600

New York: Coward-McCann, Inc., 1965.

First American edition, second printing of the author’s fourth novel. Octavo, original cloth. Presentation copy, inscribed by the author on the dedication page. “[For James Kennaway] and for Bill Safire, scholar, controversialist, stirrer-upper, entertainer and gentleman, with much affection, David alias John le Carre 20 July 90 – the day when a bunch of questionable men tried too late to kill the tyrant.” The recipient, William Safire, was an important American author, columnist, journalist, and presidential speechwriter. He joined Nixon’s campaign for the 1960 Presidential race, and again in 1968. After Nixon’s 1968 victory, Safire served as a speechwriter for him and Spiro Agnew. He authored several political columns in addition to his weekly column “On Language” in The New York Times Magazine from 1979 until the month of his death and authored two books on grammar and linguistics: The New Language of Politics (1968) and what Zimmer called Safire’s “magnum opus,” Safire’s Political Dictionary. Safire later served as a member of the Pulitzer Prize Board from 1995 to 2004 and in 2006 was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President George W. Bush. With an additional typed letter signed by Cornwell to Safire which reads in part: 21st July 1990. Dear Bill, Thanks very much for the omnibus containing The Great Impersonation. It his me at just the season for reading! I don’t think I expected to you to swallow the blasphemy book, and really its final point is a little tame. But I think that there is a truth hidden in it which one day might strike you in another context. Namely that there are mullahs of free speech who refuse to understand the limits of their own absolutism and the daily checks and balances of free speech that we exert almost unconsciously in so many spheres of life… All this, with affection, for you to mull over. It was very good to meet you. Yours, “David. Forgive the type – the book follows separately with appropriate dedication D.” Near fine in a very good dust jacket. Jacket design by Janet Halverson.

The Looking-Glass War is John Le Carre’s fourth George Smiley novel. Set in the early 1960s the cold war is in full swing, and the Department, a holdover from the WWII section of British intelligence, forms an uneasy alliance with its rival agency, the Circus, when it is suspected that Soviet missiles may be in the process of being placed along the West German border. "A book of rare and great power" (Financial Times). "The best spy story I have ever read" (Graham Greene).

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