"A WHISPER THAT SOUNDED LIKE A SNAKE, LICKING ITS TONGUE IN AND OUT": FIRST EDITION OF CAIN'S "MASTERPIECE," THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE

CAIN, James M. The Postman Always Rings Twice. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1934. Octavo, original orange cloth, original dust jacket. Housed in a custom box. $7500.

First edition of Cain's first novel, a definitive noir classic. With a laid-in photograph of Cain signed by him.

"I don't write whodunits," James M. Cain once told an interviewer. "I write love stories" (Paris Review). Once a journalist and editor, Cain loosely based this novel's murderous love story on a notorious criminal trial and in its pages introduced the unsparing, economical style that led Edmund Wilson to name him one of "the poets of the tabloid murder" (New Republic). Cain's "masterpiece" (Magill I:257) was initially banned in Canada and Boston, and became a model for Camus' The Stranger. A Keating 100 and a Haycraft Queen cornerstone, the novel was adapted to film three times: in 1942 by Luchino Visconti, in 1946 by Tay Garnett, and in 1981 by Bob Rafelson. "First Edition" stated on copyright page; dark blue topstain. Dark Page I:48. Hubin I:125. Reilly, 246-47.

Book with foxing to text block edge, cloth crisp; price-clipped dust jacket exceptionally nice with mild toning to spine, one small mark to front panel. A near-fine copy.