The Unlikely Spy.

SILVA, Daniel.

Item Number: 142755

New York: Villard Books, 1996.

First edition of Silva’s classic World War II adventure thriller from the library of Erica Jong and Ken Burrows. Octavo, original half cloth. Presentation copy, inscribed by the author on the half-title page, “3/7/97 To Ken, Thank you for your wonderful note and for your enthusiasm about the book. All Best Wishes, Daniel Silva.” The recipient, American litigator Kenneth David Burrows married American novelist Erica Jong in 1989. Jong remains best known for her 1973 novel Fear of Flying which became famously controversial for its portrayal of female sexuality and figured prominently in the development of second-wave feminism. Written in the first person and narrated by its protagonist, 29-year-old American poet Isadora Wing, Fear of Flying was written in the throes of the Sexual Revolution of the 1970s and encapsulated the movement’s redefinition of female sexuality. In interviews, Jong stated: “At the time I wrote Fear of Flying, there was not a book that said women are romantic, women are intellectual, women are sexual—and brought all those things together… What [Isadora is] looking for is how to be a whole human being, a body and a mind, and that is what women were newly aware they needed in 1973.” The novel remains a feminist classic and has sold more than 20 million copies worldwide. From the library of Erica Jong and Ken Burrows. Fine in a fine dust jacket. Jacket design by Daniel Rembert.

Based on the historical attempt by the Allies to use British intelligence to cover up the true plans for D-Day in the midst of WWII, The Unlikely Spy follows protagonist Alfred Vicary, a historian and friend of Winston Churchill. Assigned the task of protecting Operation Mulberry prior to the invasion of Normandy, Vicary manages to reveal the secret identity of the German spy Catherine Blake and thwarts her attempt to supply Germany with British intelligence.