Shake Hands with the Devil

New York: William Morrow and Company. Near Fine in Very Good+ dj. 1934. First American Edition. Hardcover. [nice tight copy with minimal shelfwear, light age-toning to top of text block; jacket has a small closed tear and some associated creasing and light scuffing at bottom of front panel]. Book set during the Irish Civil War of the early 1920s, jacket-blurbed as "the first Irish novel which does not leave a hopeless sense of the complexity of the most picturesque revolution of recent years." ("Picturesque"!) A prefatory note by the author disclaims any "sensationalism" on his part: "Plain facts are told in a plain way, just as they and their like occurred within my knowledge. There has been no attempt at embellishment. Whatever sensationalism creeps in is due to the fact that the years of the 'trouble' were sensational enough to be stamped till death on the brains of every Irish man and woman who had the misfortune to live through them." (Yes, those "picturesque" times.) Basis for the 1959 film of the same name, starring James Cagney, Don Murray, and Dana Wynter. .