8vo. (Faint areas of adhesive ghosting to free endpapers.) Original dark blue cloth lettered in gilt; dust jacket (spine lightly toned, small chip to front panel slightly affecting the "D" in the title, a few tiny nicks to spine ends). Provenance: Craig V. Showalter (bookplate).

FIRST EDITION of Maugham's influential spy novel, often called the first modern spy fiction, which "lifts the secret service sleuth high above the conventional conception of the spy-catcher" (Queen's Quorum 78). Haycroft-Queen Cornerstone; Stott A37a.