Day of the Jackal, The

London: Hutchinson, 1971. Inscribed First Edition of Frederick Forsyth's 'The Day of the Jackal'
Bound by Sangorski & Sutclifffe In a Unique Pictorial Binding

FORSYTH, Frederick. [SANGORSKI & SUTCLIFFE, binders]. The Day of the Jackal. London: Hutchinson, 1971.

First edition. Presentation copy inscribed by John Forsyth on the verso of the half-title "To/Sir Dudley/with warmest regards/Freddie Forsyth/15.11.71."

Octavo (8 3/8 x 5 3/16 inches; 213 x 132 mm.). [vi], 358 pp.

Pictorially bound by Sangorski & Sutcliffe ca. 1980 in full red, blue, black and white oasis morocco, front cover with black morocco onlays and silver rule depicting a marksman and crosshairs, smooth spine lettered in silver, all edges silver, red, blue and white head- and tail bands, patterned red and black end-papers, original dust-jacket preserved at end. Housed in the original full black morocco slipcase.

Although the binding is unsigned it was specially commissioned by a collector who always used S & S.

As a young journalist posted in Paris in the early 1960s, Forsyth had reported first hand from the scene of a genuine attempt by extreme right wing forces to assassinate President Charles de Gaulle on the Avenue de la Libération. It was this experience which inspired his 1971 novel, centered on an unnamed assassin, codenamed the "Jackal," who ingeniously plots a further threat to de Gaulle's life...

Winner of the Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Novel, Forsyth's first thriller won immediate acclaim as "a strikingly successful thriller... It makes such comparable books as The Manchurian Candidate and The Spy Who Came In From The Cold seem like Hardy Boy mysteries" (New York Times). Drawing on events such as a 1962 assassination attempt on De Gaulle, made by Alain de Bougrenet de la Tocnaye, Forsyth returned from years as a war correspondent in Africa to write his novel "in just 35 days, a feat he describes as something 'not quite so crazy when you think of twelve pages a day, times that by thirty-five and there you go, there's your novel" (BBC). Basis for the popular 1973 film by director Fred Zinneman, starring Edward Fox. Preceded the same year by the English edition. Yaakov & Greenfieldt, 231. A fine signed copy.