The Golden Salamander

Novel (252 pages, 72,023 words)

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This was Canning's third post-war book for Hodder and Stoughton, published in 1949 at 8/6 with a print run of 13,160 copies. The US edition by Mill & Co came out at the same time, and there was a Peoples Book Club (US) edition with vivid cover and endpaper graphics and an imprint date of 1948, possibly reflecting a serialisation in that year. There was a second impression published at 6/- in 1952 with a film tie-in jacket showing Trevor Howard and Anouk Aimée. There was a 1953 paperback with a print run of 60,000. In 1956 a comic strip version was issued in Super Detective Library No 72.

The book was filmed in Hollywood in 1950, starring Trevor Howard and Anouk Aimée, and with Herbert Lom, Miles Malleson and Wilfred Hyde White in supporting roles. Trevor Howard had appeared in a Canning play in 1940 before he was famous, which may have been a factor in the casting. In this film he looks too old for the role of David Redfern, but the film is one of the best of those made from Canning's books at the time and still is shown on afternoon TV occasionally.

The book is dedicated "to my wife".

Archaeologist David Redfern, on his way to the fictional town of Kabarta in Algeria to pack up some antiquities which have been bequeathed to the British Museum, sees a wrecked lorry with a cargo of rifles and machine guns. When, after some soul-searching, he tries to report this to the authorities, he involves a young local artist and the girl who runs the local hotel, leading to the boy's death and his own and the girl's great danger. (In the film version the boy who dies is turned into the girl's brother.)

First edition	Film tie-in edition	Uniform edition	Comic strip version
US book club	Endpaper artwork from US	Film title screen	Index of characters, locations and themes (in preparation)