The Spy's Bedside Book - SIGNED by Both Authors

London: Rupert Hart Davis, 1957. A first edition, first printing published by Rupert Hart-Davis in 1957. Describes the hazards and rewards of the spy trade, along with many tricks of the trade. Also includes several short stories and poems by various writers who have touched on the subject. Inscribed to British actor Alan Cooke by Graham Greene and Hugh Greene (no relation) on the front endpaper. Hugh Greene was head of The German Service at the BBC during WWII, became Director-General of the BBC, and in 1969 became chairman of The Bodley Head. An uncommon title in the Greene canon, with signed copies rarely if ever surfacing. About fine in a near fine (or better) dust wrapper. On its first appearance in 1957, Hugh and Graham Greene's "The Spy's Bedside Book" provoked a storm of interest, and, perhaps unsurprisingly, 100 copies were bought by East German Intelligence. This classic anthology, with a new introduction by the former head of MI5, Stella Rimington, includes stories by some of the great writers on spying and many practitioners, including Ian Fleming and John Buchan, Sir Robert Baden-Powell and Belle Boyd, Walter Schellenberg and Major Andre, Sir Paul Dukes and Vladimir Petrov, and from the golden age of mystery and suspense, William Le Queux and E. Phillips Oppenheim. There are also some unexpected figures: William Blake, D.H. Lawrence and Thomas Mann, all suspected of spying in three great wars. How can you hide messages in a boiled egg? Why should you always put pepper in your vodka when in Russia?