Description
Faber and Faber, Published 1959. Hardcover, 89 pp.; 21 cm; fourth impression (first published 1957); illustrated with black-and-white drawings by V. H. Drummond.
Rare, out-of-print & unusual books · Since 1997
112
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Catalog notes
Condition & notes
In Very Good condition with a Good dust jacket. Green cloth boards, gilt lettering and ornaments on spine. Mild shelf and edge wear. Binding tight. Mild toning to endpapers, otherwise pages clean and unmarked. Lavender illustrated dust jacket with Drummond's ballroom drawing on front and list of Durrell's titles through Clea on rear, priced 10s 6d net. A few nicks and chips along top and bottom edges, with paper loss at head and foot of spine; overall shelf and edge wear, some soiling to rear panel, scattered spotting and heavier toning to spine panel. Both lower flap corners trimmed diagonally, price intact. Now in an archival quality (removable) Brodart cover. Nine comic sketches of the British Foreign Service, told over lunch at his club by Antrobus, a career diplomat, to the narrator, a former contract officer. Durrell drew on his own service at the British Embassy in Belgrade, and the book is dedicated to the members of the Chancery, H.M. Embassy Belgrade 1951. The stories send the Diplomatic Corps by special train to Zagreb, follow the English-language Central Balkan Herald into the composition room, and set a raft of envoys adrift on the Sava and Danube. John Betjeman, quoted on the jacket flap, compared it to Stephen Potter's Gamesmanship. Antrobus returned in Stiff Upper Lip (1958) and Sauve Qui Peut (1966). V. H. Drummond's full-page line drawings face the text throughout. Contents: The Ghost Train; Case History; Frying the Flag; Jots and Tittles; For Immediate Release; White Man's Milk; Drage's Divine Discontent; "Noblesse Oblige"; Call of the Sea.