With My Little Eye (First Edition, Inscribed by Author)

ELLIOTT, Nicholas. With My Little Eye: Observations Along the Way. Norwich: Michael Russell, 1993.

Octavo. Original blue publisher's cloth. Gilt lettering to spine. Clipped pictorial dust jacket. 111 pp. First edition. Inscribed by the author on the title page: "For Peter & Sally, A very humble submission and my fond wishes for a better 1994. Nicholas Elliott, 1993."

Nicholas Elliott (1916–1994) spent his career at the centre of British intelligence operations during the most consequential decades of the Cold War. He was the son of the Provost of Eton, educated there before going up to Cambridge, and entered MI6 in circumstances that were — as he describes with characteristic self-deprecation — almost absurdly casual, even by the standards of a Service notorious for recruiting through old-boy networks and chance encounters. His career was distinguished and his operational record considerable; but it was shadowed by two episodes that defined his public reputation.

The first was the disappearance and presumed death of Commander Lionel Crabb, the frogman Elliott sent to examine the Soviet cruiser Ordzhonikidze during Khrushchev's state visit to Britain in 1956 — an operation that went fatally wrong and caused significant political embarrassment. The second, and far more personally painful, was his confrontation with Kim Philby. Elliott and Philby had been close friends for years; Elliott had vouched for him at his most dangerous moment. When it was finally confirmed in 1963 that Philby had been a Soviet agent throughout, it was Elliott who flew to Beirut to obtain his confession. Philby confessed — but delayed signing, and fled to Moscow. The friendship, the betrayal, and Elliott's role in the final act have since become among the most examined episodes in the history of British intelligence, most recently through Ben Macintyre's A Spy Among Friends (2014).

With My Little Eye is Elliott's second memoir, following Never Judge a Man by his Umbrella (1991), and was published the year before his death. It carries throughout the dry wit, patrician understatement, and stubborn refusal to engage in self-pity that characterised both his writing and his career. The inscription — wishing its recipients "a better 1994" — was written in a year that would prove to be his last.

Near fine in like dust jacket. Jacket clipped; some minor imperfections to jacket covers. A few spots internally. Otherwise fine throughout.

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Catalogue Number: HH000047