In the original dustsheet. Black cloth binding with gilt title on the spine.

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Dr Simmonds is infatuated with an unhappily married patient, Yvonne. When she presents him with a novel about a certain Dr Glas, Simmonds immediately recognizes his own affinity with the fictional doctor. The trouble is that Dr Glas deliberately murders the husband of the one he loved.

Review: A strange book. Beautifully written by the poet Dannie Abse,it tells the story of Simmonds, a London GP, prevented from becoming a surgeon by a boyhood accident which damaged his hands, and possibly prevented from forming a permanent relationship by the facial scarring caused by the same accident. He forms an infatuation for a patient’s wife and begins to identify with the protagonist in a Swedish novel, Dr Glas, who murders his patient’s husband. Lacking the courage of his convictions, Simmonds ultimately fails to kill the despised husband but brings about a fate which is infinitely worse. I didn’t understand the ending ..

The best aspects of the book were the brilliant evocation of seedy, impoverished post-War Austerity London and the subtle attack on anti-Semitism.