LE CARON, Henry [pseudonym for Thomas MILLER BEACH]. Twenty-Five Years in the Secret Service. The Recollections of a Spy. London, Heinemann, 1892.
8vo. Original green cloth, spine lettered in gilt, front cover with Irish harp in gilt; pp. vi, [2], 311, 16 (publisher's catalogue), five portraits after photographs with tissue guards, facsimiles in the text; cloth a little marked, a little offsetting from endpapers, plates and facsimiles with marginal traces of humidity, otherwise good, contemporary engraverd armorial bookplate of Kathleen Mary Farquhar inside front cover.
First edition, very rare. 'Beach, known as Major Henri Le Caron, went to the United States in 1861 and soon afterwards joined Irish nationalist organisations there. For twenty-five years he acted as a paid spy on the Fenian movement for both the British and Canadian governments. His evidence to the Parnell Commission meant his blowing his cover' (National Portrait Gallery, online).
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