Greene, Graham--Wright, Peter.

8vo, PRESENTATION COPY INSCRIBED BY GRAHAM GREENE TO KIM PHILBY ("For Kim and Rufina with affectionate greetings from Graham & Yvonne Sep. 9 '87"), dust-jacket, [with, loosely inserted:] Kim Philby, autograph note signed, to Greene, thanking him for the book ("Spy catcher has arrived, two months and a few days after despatch"), in pencil, 1 page, oblong 8vo, [Moscow], 18 November 1987; also with a later press cutting; housed in a fitted black cloth folding box

(note only): sold in these rooms, 19 July 1994, lot 478 (part lot)

A REMARKABLE ASSOCIATION COPY OF THE HUGELY CONTROVERSIAL MEMOIR BY THE FORMER ASSISTANT DIRECTOR OF MI5. The book's scandalous allegations, including that MI5 had plotted to bring down Harold Wilson and that Roger Hollis, a former director of MI5, had been a Soviet double-agent, led to the British government's ultimately unsuccessful attempt to prevent its publication. Wright's first assignment on joining MI5 in 1955 was to assist in the interrogation of Kim Philby, by then under suspicion as the "third man" in a Soviet spy ring but eight years before his defection. Philby had been Greene's supervisor and friend during Greene's wartime service in MI6, and may also have been the model for Harry Lime in The Third Man. Greene and Philby had re-established their friendship when Greene visited Moscow in 1986. This book is jointly inscribed to Kim and his second wife, Rufina, who had learnt English using The Heart of the Matter as her textbook.