A Feast for Crows
By George R. R. Martin
 
 
First UK edition, first impression: London: Voyager, an imprint of HarperCollins, 2005. Signed by the author on the title page.
 
Original red cloth, spine lettered and decorated in gilt with the HarperCollins device and Voyager imprint at the foot; black endpapers and pastedowns. With the original pictorial dust jacket, artwork by Larry Rostant, unclipped and priced £18.99.
 
A near fine copy, signed by the author in black ink across the title page; the binding square and firm with bright gilt; some white spotting to the board fore-edges, chiefly to the upper board, the contents otherwise clean and fresh.
 
The dust jacket near fine and unclipped, with a hint of edge wear, primarily to the spine ends. Rostant's design — a chased gold chalice lit from within, against a ground of deep red darkening at the extremities — retains its full strength of colour, the lettering to the spine panel bright and the folds sharp; overall presenting very well.
 
The fourth volume of A Song of Ice and Fire. Voyager published on 17 October 2005, three weeks ahead of the Bantam edition of 8 November, so that this printing precedes the American issue. The novel is half of a longer book: finding the manuscript unmanageable at length, MARTIN divided it geographically rather than chronologically, carrying half the cast forward into A Dance with Dragons and setting out his reasoning in a note at the end of the text. It was shortlisted for the 2006 Hugo Award for Best Novel, losing to Robert Charles Wilson's Spin, and for the Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel; the American hardcover, released the following month, was the first book in the sequence to debut at number one on the New York Times bestseller list.