First edition. 8vo. Original red cloth, spine lettered in gilt, dust jacket price clipped. London, Chatto & Windus, 1961.
Murdoch's fifth novel, in his review for The New Yorker in 2001, John Updike called it a masterpiece, and recalled it "being passed around among young suburban couples in the early sixties as a species of news. This news—that we tend to love, that love is ambient and uncontrollable and comically, cruelly protean". A near fine copy, light wear to the head of jacket spine panel, jacket price clipped, previous owners inscription to front free endpaper.
