First edition, first impression (true first). Red cloth boards (worn, rounded and beginning to fray at corners, mildly marked). Ex library, markings on front endpapers only. A few marks on pages. In a pictorial period dust jacket (chipped and nicked, a couple of marks, tear along spine and old tape repair, front flap present but detached). A teenager goes to live with a sinister guardian following her aunt’s death. Mary Burchell was the pen name of Ida Cook, a British campaigner for Jewish refugees. She and her sister rescued 29 Jews from the Nazis in the 1930s, mainly funded by Cook’s writing. Between 1936 and 1985, she wrote 112 romance novels as Mary Burchell for Mills & Boon (many of which have since been republished by Harlequin). Many of her titles are now hard to find, especially in hardback, with original dust jackets.
