Love And Night: Unknown Stories - Hardcover

Woolrich, Cornell

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0939767589 ISBN 13: 9780939767588

Publisher: Partners Pub Group, 2007

Synopsis

Unusual book

About this title

About the Author:

The Author. During the 1940s, Cornell Woolrich (1903-1968) wrote eleven novels that, according to Francis M. Nevins in his Introduction, “are unsurpassable classics in the poetry of terror . . . [and] make up the finest group of suspense novels ever written.” Woolrich, whose early Jazz Age novels were published in his twenties, also produced many romantic short stories that foreshadow some of the themes of his later work. Notes Nevins: “Woolrich’s world is a feverish place where the prevailing emotions are loneli¬ness and fear. . . .” The Editor. Francis M. Nevins has won two Edgar awards from the Mystery Writers of America for his scholarly work on Cornell Woolrich and Ellery Queen. By training a lawyer, he has written many essays on the nexus between fiction and the law. But to readers of Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Mr. Nevins is perhaps best known as the author of dozens of classic detective stories, many of them collected in Night Forms (2010). Two of his Milo Turner mystery novels are due to be reissued in 2012.

From Booklist:

Like many of his fellow first-generation noir novelists, Woolrich lived a truly bizarre life, often in complete opposition to the dark world portrayed in his fiction. That life is scrupulously recounted in Francis M. Nevins’ Edgar-winning biography, First You Dream, Then You Die (1988); now Nevins embarks on what may be an even more ambitious project: compiling Woolrich’s complete short fiction. Volume one, made up of “unknown stories,” will be of interest mainly to devoted fans. Like Jim Thompson, Woolrich began his career convinced he would become a mainstream literary novelist, and his early stories, published in such venues as Breezy Stories and McClure’s, reflect that ambition. And yet, helped by Nevins’ insightful notes, readers will see in these tales fascinating glimpses of a tortured noir writer slouching toward Bethlehem to be born; it’s almost like reading a case study of the psyche behind the books. Casual noir fans stumbling onto the collection will wonder where they took a wrong turn, but any large library, personal or institutional, developing an extensive collection of noir needs this volume (and the rest of the series). --Bill Ott

About this edition

• Publisher: Partners Pub Group
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 0939767589
• ISBN 13: 9780939767588
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 236
• Editor: Nevins Francis M.