London: Gollancz, 1982

8vo, pp. 126. Original black boards, lettered in gilt to spine. Illustrated dust jacket. Agent's cover letter laid in. Agent's ownership stamp to front free endpaper. A near fine copy in a very good dust jacket, some discoloration to reverse of rear panel with a resultant slight and unobtrusive corrugation of the paper.

First edition. Copy of the Anthony Sheil literary agency, with their stamp to front free endpaper, with an accompanying agency letter to John Blackwell, literary editor at Secker & Warburg, forwarding the book to him. The third title in the Virconium tetralogy. Nominated for the 1983 Guardian Fiction Prize, the British Fantasy Award and the Philip K. Dick Award.

John Blackwell [1937-1997] joined Secker and Warburg in the late 1960s, when the imprint was still an independent company run by Fredric Warburg himself. He was a constant presence through the company's innumerable corporate takeovers, mergers and changes of managing director. He was Tom Sharpe's editor, and was literary midwife to J. M. Coetzee, John Banville, Tom McGuane, Malcolm Bradbury and Louis de Bernieres, among many others. Blackwell was also the editor of Harrison's friend Michael Moorcock, who may have effected this introduction.