Carter Beats the Devil

First edition. Thick 8vo. Pp. [x], 563, [3]. Grey cloth boards, stamped in silver to spine. Precedes the Hyperion U.S. edition.

Signed by author to title-page. Toning to top-edge block, else Fine.

Debut novel, dedicated to 'the mysterious Miss Alice,' a.k.a. Alice Sebold, the author of The Lovely Bones, and his then wife. A 2001 New York Times and Washington Post 'Notable Book of the Year'. Shortlisted for the 2001 Guardian First Book Award. A fictionalized account of the American master illusionist, Charles Joseph Carter (1874–1936), known as "Carter the Great", skilfully blending both real and imagined characters.

"Here is a book – a first novel no less – to blow you away. It seeks to stun and amaze and deceive and, always, to entertain, and it seldom misses a trick in 600 pulsating pages". –Peter Preston, Guardian