Official Secret. The Remarkable Story of Escape Aids - their Invention, Production - and the Sequel.
London: Max Parrish, 1960. [Espionage] FIRST EDITION, first impression. Octavo (23 x 15cm), pp.196. Illustrated with full page monochrome plates. Publisher's black cloth hardcovers lettered in gilt to spine, typographic dust-wrapper priced 18s. Contents clean, jacket bright and fresh. A particularly crisp, fine copy. One of the most remarkable figures of the secret background of the war, Major Christopher William Clayton Hutton was a British inventor known for his war service with MI9, a secret branch of Military Intelligence. Hutton designed and distributed ingenious escape and evasion aids for Allied servicemen; silk maps disguised as playing cards, dart-firing fountain pens, cigarette holders doubling as telescopes, bootlaces containing flexible saws for cutting through prison bars, and cufflinks containing miniature compasses. Like Charles Fraser-Smith at the Ministry of Supply, his gadgets influenced 'Q-Branch' in the later James Bond spy adventures by Ian Fleming. A genuinely rare book in first impression. Item #71078
Price: £450.00
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