\"We possess nothing in the world,\" wrote Simone Weil, \"-- a mere chance can strip us of everything -- excepting the power to say \'I\'.\" In this new novel Edward Hyams examines the lives of a man and the woman he loves, both of whom cripple themselves in the service of themselves. For each of them, self-regard is the obstacle to happiness.Edward Tillotson\'s career in the ordinarily selfish pursuit of his own advancement leads him into breaking practically every commandment. Yet he is guilty of nothing but seizing such opportunities to get ahead as life offers him. Launched on the world in his late teens, he is soon set on a course which engages him in the rat-race to success. Meanwhile the Furies—Mr. Hyams\'s own version of them-who always belabour their victims with bladders, not cudgels, lead Tillotson into committing something uncomfortably like murder. It is the passionless lust of others that finally brings him and the woman he loves to humiliation, and to the realisation that there is no slavery so unendurable as slavery to oneself.A second impression of the first edition in good condition. Small bumps to dust jacket and one very small tear. Some foxing to endpapers and fore-edge.