THE COMFORT OF STRANGERS

First edition, first printing. Original brown cloth with gilt titles to the spine, in the dustwrapper designed by Mon Mohan, reproducing a watercolour by J. M. W. Turner of the Grand Canal in Venice. A near fine copy, the binding square and firm, the contents, the pages and endpapers toned owing to the poor quality paper-stock, clean throughout. A previous owner has written "Christmas 1981" in blue ink to the upper corner of the front free endpaper. Complete with the sharp, bright and neatly price-clipped dustwrapper, that has just a touch of creasing to the upper edge of the rear panel. Without the fading to the spine that often blemishes this wrapper.

Although the city remains unnamed in the novel, McEwan's second novel clearly takes its place in a line of fictional works to portray Venice as a setting for the menacing and unsettling. The novel was shortlisted for the 1981 Booker Prize and later adapted for the 1990 film (unambiguously set in Venice) directed by Paul Schrader with a screenplay by Harold Pinter and starring Christopher Walken, Helen Mirren, Natasha Richardson and Rupert Everett.