Spy novel collection to be sold - 26/03/2010

A collection of British spy novels are to be put up for auction.

Private collector Otto Penzler has amassed an array of rare spy fiction novels that will have fellow secret service admirers very excited, according to the Guardian.

Included among the items on sale will be works by John Le Carre, Grahame Greene and Eric Ambler.

Lots likely to spark particular excitement include a first edition copy of Casino Royale, which is expected to fetch $30,000 and a 1938 volume of Ambler's Cause for Alarm.

Penzler, who opened The Mysterious Bookshop in Manhattan in 1979, revealed that his store's location allowed for him to secure the signatures of many of the genre's top authors.

He told the news provider: "Because my bookshop was in Manhattan, most authors sooner or later found themselves visiting, where I distinguished myself as an enormous irritant by asking them to inscribe my books."

The novels will be sold in New York.