Sarratt and the Draper of Watford by John LE CARRÉ
LE CARRÉ, John [pseudonym of David John Moore CORNWELL]. Sarratt and the Draper of Watford. Sarratt: Village Books, 1999.
First edition, first printing. A collection of short stories set in the village of Sarratt, featuring John Le Carre’s "Sarratt and the Draper of Watford". Other contributions include “The Adventures of Colonel Karla in Sarratt” by KGB intelligence officer and novelist, Mikhail Lyubimov, and a piece by Rev. Edward Ryley on the Sarratt church.
When John le Carré started to write his Cold War espionage thrillers he invented the Nursery, a fictional spy training school set it Sarratt, a picturesque village in Hertfordshire: ‘it is no wonder to me at all that when […] I came to select a birthplace for my secret England, I should have lighted upon Sarratt’s pretty village green and cosy redbrick cottages and half-hidden mansions and Sarratt’s exquisitely beautiful Church of the Holy Cross, and imagined them as the keepers of an English mystery of which I was some kind of undefined inheritor.’
8vo, 64 pp. 3 coloured plates, b/w photographs. Fine in fine dust jacket. The dust jacket features the Sarratt church by moonlight on the front face, special offers from local traders on the flaps, and instructions for a John le Carré related competition on the rear face.
This book was produced to benefit the Sarratt church and village hall. With the ‘People of Sarratt on Midsummer’s Day 21 June 1999’ booklet and a book order leaflet (both published by Village Books) loosely inserted.