Smith and Jones. Nicholas Monsarrat

Smith and Jones, Monsarrat, Nicholas. Published by Cassell and Company, London, 1963. First Edition. 8vo up to 9½” tall. 161 pages. Orange cloth boards, gilt spine titles. Light coffee stain to bottom of page 41-42, otherwise volume in fine condition without marks, tears or folds. Clipped jacket protected in mylar has light edge rubbing and otherwise fine.

This is the second novel in the Signs of the Times quartet. A spy thriller set in the Cold War, Smith and Jones is believed to be based on based on the Cambridge Five spy ring and the 1951 defection of Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean to the Soviet Union. The following is taken from the contemporaneous KIRKUS REVIEW dated March 27th, 1963: “Any resemblance to people living or dead is purely””…. deliberate, and this tracer of Smith and Jones, two diplomats who have defected to a cold country, involves some truly artful dodging. Certainly the faces would seem familiar (Burgess and MacLean) — that of Ivan Percival Smith, a man of taste and talent, and Peter Paul Jones, an elegant decadent, both with spotty personal histories”.  002516     $40