The Bride Wore Black x 11

WOOLRICH, Cornell (1903-68). The Bride wore Black. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1940.

8o. Original cloth (slight lean); pictorial dust jacket by Charles Coleman (price-clipped, tiny chip to back panel, slight rubbing to joints and folds). Provenance: Nina Kelly Bruce (bookplate, signatures on front and back endpapers).

FIRST EDITION of Woolrich’s first mystery and a landmark of noir. “There are no suspects, no clues, yet the reader is tensely aware of mystery. There is only the woman, her victims, and the relentless drama of her life–a pale shadow that comes gradually into focus and is seen at last in brilliant outline” (dust jacket). The basis for François Truffaut’s film starring Jeanne Moreau. A Haycraft-Queen Cornerstone.

1941 Philadelphia Enquirer Newspaper Supplement

better image than previously posted

Summer 1941 issue – cover art by Wilson Scruggs

better image than previously posted

1945 Pocket reprint

cover art by H. Lawrence Hoffman

better image than previously posted

1952 Winter issue – cover art by George Gross

1953 Pyramid reissue with new title

1957 Dell reissue

1958 Dutch edition from Kroonder,Bussum

better image than previously posted

1968 Ace reissue

1984 Ballantine reissue

cover art by Laurence Schwinger

2021 American Mystery Classics trade paperback

Ass-kicked by Fate

“Film Noir is the flip side of the all-American success story. It’s about people who realize that following the program will never get them what they crave. So they cross the line, commit a crime and reap the consequences. Or, they’re tales about seemingly innocent people tortured by paranoia and ass-kicked by Fate. Either way, they depict a world that’s merciless and unforgiving.”

— Eddie Muller

Film Noir

“Film Noir is the flip side of the all-American success story. It’s about people who realize that following the program will never get them what they crave. So they cross the line, commit a crime and reap the consequences. Or, they’re tales about seemingly innocent people tortured by paranoia and ass-kicked by Fate. Either way, they depict a world that’s merciless and unforgiving.”

Eddie Muller