HILL, George H. Go Spy the Land. Being the Adventures of IK8 of the British Secret Service. London, Cassell, [1936].
8vo. Original red cloth, spine lettered in black, map endpapers (from Arkhangelsk to Saratov in the south); pp. [ii], 283; cloth a little discoloured with light spotting at beginning and at the end; a good copy of a rare and important book.
Second (first cheap) edition, published first in 1932. Dennis Wheatley was a friend of the ex-spy, who served as Wheatley's technical advisor in researching the background for his spy novel The Eunuch of Stamboul. He wrote about Hill that was 'one of the most interesting men I have ever met. He was an Englishman born in Estonia, his father having been a wood exporter there. As a young man he went into our Secret Service, where he was known as IK8, and, being bilingual, he was sent to Russia. When the Bolsheviks gained power first our Ambassador was recalled, and then that charming and gifted writer, Robert Bruce-Lockhart, who had been left as British representative. Peter became the only source of information that the British Government had about events in Bolshevik-held territory. His adventures as a secret agent were fascinating. Most remarkable of all, he succeeded in smuggling the Russian Crown jewels out of Rumania' (Drink and Ink pp. 137-8).
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