Part II of the book was subsequently decoupled from Spanish Testament and, with minor modifications, published on its own under the title Dialogue with Death (see quotation below).

Spanish Testament is (and shall remain) out of print; Dialogue with Death has been reissued in England under that title, in the form in which it was originally written.

[1]Koestler made three trips to Spain during the civil war and on the third occasion he was captured, sentenced to death and imprisoned by the Nationalist forces of General Franco.

He had only narrowly escaped arrest by Franco’s army on his previous sojourn into Nationalist territory, when on his second day in Nationalist-held Seville he was recognised by a former colleague of his from Ullstein’s in Berlin, who knew that Koestler was a Communist.

The book was written in German, except for the prison diary, which Koestler wrote in English to avoid attracting the Gestapo's attention.