The Naive and Sentimental Lover by LE CARRÉ, John [pseudonym of David John Moore CORNWELL] (born 1931)

London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1971. [Suspense] FIRST EDITION. Octavo (21 x 14cm), pp.416. Publisher's black cloth blocked in gilt, grey endpapers, top edge tinted red, dust-jacket designed Tony Geddes. Bumped to lower corner, trivial wear to crown else a fine copy, with original price (£2.25) intact [often clipped]. This acclaimed novel follows Aldo Cassidy (the naive and sentimental lover), a successful, judicious man, wrenched away from the ordered certainties of his life by a sudden encounter with Shamus, a wild, carousing artist and Helen, his nakedly alluring wife. Cassidy, plunged into a whirlpool of recklessness and spontaneity, becomes a man bewildered and agonised as he is torn between two poles of a nature more complex than he had ever imagined.