First US edition of Ambler's classic spy novel, set at the beginning of the Second World War and published just after the author's own enlistment in the British Army.
Very good in very good jacket.
Price: $550.00
"You ask me why anyone should want to murder you. There is an excellent reason. Unfortunately, I cannot be more explicit."
Like many later thrillers that followed Ambler's template, JOURNEY INTO FEAR stars a civilian involuntarily drawn into violence and intrigue abroad, who proves himself less helpless and naive than his enemies first suppose. Set against the contemporary background of a neutral Turkey during the "phoney war" period before the fall of France, the story's geopolitical particulars were updated by Joseph Cotten and Orson Welles for the 1943 film adaptation — the protagonist was also changed to be American, although the existence of Englishmen was not, strictly speaking, a historical anachronism even three years later. A handsome copy in the striking dust jacket.
Read more: Ashforth, "Remembering Eric Ambler," The New Criterion; Sinyard, "Ambler and Greene: Journeys into Fear."
First printing. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1940. 7.5'' x 5''. Original blue-stamped orange cloth. In original unclipped ($2.00) dust jacket. 275, [1] pages. Blue topstain. Light wear to boards, slight spine lean. Some chipping and small closed tears to jacket edges, spot of dampstain at top of front flap fold.
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