THE SCARLATTI INHERITANCE

First edition, first printing. Signed by the author. Inscribed presentation copy. Publisher's original red leatherette stamped in white and black to the upper board and with white titles to the spine, in the acetate dustwrapper which is printed in white. Top edge blue. A fine copy, the binding square and tight, bright and fresh. The contents, a little toned to the page edges are otherwise clean throughout and without previous owner's inscriptions or stamps. Complete with the original glassine which is a little dusty but without tears or loss. Correctly priced $6.95 to the upper front flap and with the publisher's code A3696 to the lower panel. An attractive example, uncommon thus.

The author's first book, inscribed by Ludlum in black ink on the half title "For Marge and Don / Through Thick and Thin... / Blood and Gore, / They're no such friends - / Evermore.... / When Scores Are Totalled / Souls Accounted... / There's Don and Marge / On Pedastles [sic] Mounted / (Side by Side) / And if this doesn't send you back to the / Typewriter, Don, Nothing on this / Earth Will! / Love you both - / Robert". The recipients are playwright Donald R. Wilde and his wife Marjorie Lee, both close friends of the author and the dedicatees of Ludlum's 1974 thriller (written under his Jonathan Ryder pseudonym) 'The Cry of Halidon'.