My Dog Tulip by J.R. Ackerley 1st / 1st 1956

First edition and first print published by Secker & Warburg in 1956. This is a very near fine copy. The jacket is almost immaculate with very little wear to speak of at all. It is not price clipped displaying the correct price of 10s 6d net. The book is also in highly presentable condition. It has the book plate of CIA agent Michael Josselson to the inside board.
 
During the Cold War, Josselson was commissioned by the CIA to set up the Congress for Cultural Freedom in 1950. He recruited former communist intellectuals (André Malraux, Denis de Rougemont, Arthur Koestler, Franz Borkenau, Andre Gide, Raymond Aron, Bertrand Russell, Michael Polanyi, and others) to lead an ideological struggle in Europe against the influence of Marxist ideas.
 
J.R. Ackerley's German shepherd Tulip was skittish, possessive, and wild, but he loved her deeply. This book about her is described by Christopher Isherwood as one of the "greatest masterpieces of animal literature".