John Lehmann Ltd, 1950. First edition. Hardback in dust jacket. 256pp. Spine a little faded. Foxing to edges of text block and first and last few leaves. A clean and tight copy. The John Minton jacket with some foxing and off-setting; a little scuffing and chipping to corners and tail of spine; slight loss to head of spine. A very good copy of this exceedingly scarce novel in the original highly sought-after John Minton jacket. *** First novel (of two) by the rather mysterious author Roland Camberton (Ps. Henry Cohen, 1921–1965). It won the 1951 Somerset Maugham Award and was called "one of the best first novels since the war" by J.B. Priestley. Julian Maclaren-Ross was less enthused by what he called "an excuse for dragging in a series of thinly disguised literary celebrities’. But maybe he didn’t like the way he was portrayed in this roman-a clef about bohemian life in late 1940s London. Scamp had long been out of print (and mostly forgotten) when New London Editions republished it in 2010 (as a paperback), with an introduction by Iain Sinclair. A great rediscovery!