BLACKBURN, John. Broken Boy
BLACKBURN, John. Broken Boy. London: Secker and Warburg. 1959. 8vo. First edition. Publisher’s red cloth lettered in a vibrant yellow to the spine, in the remarkable dust jacket designed by Peter Curl. A very good copy overall, the cloth clean and bright, the tips a trifle bumped, but the binding tight and square, with a few minor spots to the textblock edges. The contents mostly fine, with some very light toning throughout and occasional spotting to prelims. The dust jacket unclipped (12s 6d net) with pencil strikethrough, and some frustrating ink squiggles to front flap. The spine tips, corners and some edges gently rubbed and bumped with a few other abrasions, but a striking copy nonetheless.
The third volume in the author’s loose General Kirk trilogy, of which Kirk, head of the British Foreign Office Intelligence, investigates a murder of a woman thought to be a prostitute, then a Cold War spy, and finally something relating to something much more sinister. Blackburn had a colourful life and earned a precarious living as a secondhand book dealer. His novels, as this one does, tended to merge sci-fi, mystery, thriller and occult horror.
BLACKBURN, John. Broken Boy. London: Secker and Warburg. 1959. 8vo. First edition. Publisher’s red cloth lettered in a vibrant yellow to the spine, in the remarkable dust jacket designed by Peter Curl. A very good copy overall, the cloth clean and bright, the tips a trifle bumped, but the binding tight and square, with a few minor spots to the textblock edges. The contents mostly fine, with some very light toning throughout and occasional spotting to prelims. The dust jacket unclipped (12s 6d net) with pencil strikethrough, and some frustrating ink squiggles to front flap. The spine tips, corners and some edges gently rubbed and bumped with a few other abrasions, but a striking copy nonetheless.
The third volume in the author’s loose General Kirk trilogy, of which Kirk, head of the British Foreign Office Intelligence, investigates a murder of a woman thought to be a prostitute, then a Cold War spy, and finally something relating to something much more sinister. Blackburn had a colourful life and earned a precarious living as a secondhand book dealer. His novels, as this one does, tended to merge sci-fi, mystery, thriller and occult horror.
BLACKBURN, John. Broken Boy. London: Secker and Warburg. 1959. 8vo. First edition. Publisher’s red cloth lettered in a vibrant yellow to the spine, in the remarkable dust jacket designed by Peter Curl. A very good copy overall, the cloth clean and bright, the tips a trifle bumped, but the binding tight and square, with a few minor spots to the textblock edges. The contents mostly fine, with some very light toning throughout and occasional spotting to prelims. The dust jacket unclipped (12s 6d net) with pencil strikethrough, and some frustrating ink squiggles to front flap. The spine tips, corners and some edges gently rubbed and bumped with a few other abrasions, but a striking copy nonetheless.
The third volume in the author’s loose General Kirk trilogy, of which Kirk, head of the British Foreign Office Intelligence, investigates a murder of a woman thought to be a prostitute, then a Cold War spy, and finally something relating to something much more sinister. Blackburn had a colourful life and earned a precarious living as a secondhand book dealer. His novels, as this one does, tended to merge sci-fi, mystery, thriller and occult horror.