The Black Novels: The Bride Wore Black, The Black Curtain, Black Alibi, The Black Angel, The Black Path of Fear, Rendezvous In Black, Stories To Be Whispered (Short Fiction Volume 2)
Cornell Woolrich
A complete matching numbered set of all 12 Woolrick Novels published by Centipede Press can be found at this link.
Centipede Press has be publishing The Black Novels (6 of them) by Cornell Woolrich as follows:
Note: Stories To Be Whispered (Short Fiction, Volume 2) has a bumped corner as shown below.
The Bride Wore Black
Revenge is a dish best served cold. That time-honored phrase encapsulates Cornell Woolrich’s The Bride Wore Black. With this novel, Woolrich created one of crime fiction’s most memorable femme fatales.
Julie Killeen has just been married to the man of her dreams. She steps out of the church and into a nightmare: before her eyes, her new husband is gunned down on the street by unknown assailants, for unknown reasons. She recovers from the trauma and meticulously crafts a cold-blooded revenge, morphing from blushing bride to icy assassin. One by one, she hunts down each of the killers. Disguised as a sexy seductress, she plots brilliant, irresistible traps for the murderers, luring each one to a violent death.
We accompany Julie on her vengeful quest. The road is laden with twists and terror, and it ends with a staggering sucker punch to the gut. Woolrich masterfully manipulates fate, fear, power, and paranoia — the building blocks of noir fiction.
The book inspired three films: FranÂÂois Truffaut’s faithful adaptation with Jeanne Moreau unforgettable in the title role; and Quentin Tarantino’s two Kill Bill installments.
The Bride Wore Black is Cornell Woolrich’s ode to the corrosive effects of the dark heart. Never has a thirst for vengeance been quenched quite so effectively.
Edition Specifications:
- Limited to 300 copies.
- Introduction by Stefan Dziemianowicz.
- Several reprints of old Cornell Woolrich The Bride Wore Blackcovers, all in full color.
- All copies signed by Stefan Dziemianowicz, Matt Mahurin, and Jacob McMurray.
- Sewn binding, rounded back, ribbon marker, head and tail bands, printed endpapers, top-edge stain, and other extras.
The Black Curtain
The Black Curtain is your personal ticket to Hell, stamped by Cornell Woolrich. Frank Townsend suffers a minor injury on a tawdry city street. He goes home and finds his wife gone, and his life turned upside-down. His apartment looks unfamiliar to him, he recognizes nothing and no one. Worse still, he’s accused of murder and is being followed by mysterious strangers for no apparent reason. Frank is plunging into a black pool of amnesia.
His past is now a mere blur. His quest seems almost impossible: he must regain his identity, clear his name, and pick up the threads of his former life. There’s no avenging angel to assist him. He’s forced to save his own skin, in his own way. He’ll walk a torturous, uncertain path.
In The Black Curtain, Woolrich toys not only with fate, but our own inner demons. Who are we, really? What secrets are we concealing? Will a terrifying past suddenly creep up and strangle us? Woolrich also keeps us guessing about Frank Townsend. Who was he before his injury? Is he truly innocent of the murder rap pinned on him?
This dark study in desperation was well-adapted for the underrated 1942 film noir Street of Chance, featuring Burgess Meredith and veteran femme fatale Claire Trevor in fine form.
With The Black Curtain, Cornell Woolrich takes our tranquil world and turns it inside-out. Familiarity becomes fatal. Happiness and comfort are fragile and elusive. Buckle up and take a ride into darkness.
Edition Specification
- Limited to 300 copies.
- Introduction by Jack Seabrook.
- Several reprints of old Cornell Woolrich The Black Curtaincovers, all in full color.
- All copies signed by Jack Seabrook, Matt Mahurin, and Jacob McMurray.
- Sewn binding, rounded back, ribbon marker, head and tail bands, printed endpapers, top-edge stain, and other extras.
Black Alibi
Cornell Woolrich’s Black Alibi is a memorable trip into the heart of darkness. Woolrich transports us to Ciudad Real, a dimly-lit South American town terrorized by a string of grisly murders. Police and townsfolk believe the culprit is an escaped jaguar. But is the killer animal or human? Is it really a big cat? Might it be Kiki Walker, a slinky nightclub chanteuse? Could it be Kiki’s ambitious press agent Jerry Manning, anxious to boost his own notoriety in any way he can? Or is it Clo-Clo, the town’s sexy, gold-digging trollop? Woolrich keeps us guessing.
We’re literally kept in the dark about the murderer, the next victim, and when each act of debauchery will occur. Woolrich takes us on a journey fraught with fear, rich in atmosphere, laden with agonizing suspense. Those pitch-black streets of Cuidad conceal a terrifying secret.
Black Alibi may be crime fiction’s first slasher story’the forerunner of countless films, novels, and short stories. Woolrich plays on our fears of the dark, the unseen, and the ever-present dangers that lurk in the shadows of night. He brings us uncomfortably close to each murder; we see the horror through the eyes of each victim.
Woolrich’s blend of noir and nightmare was superbly adapted by legendary producer Val Lewton in 1943’s The Leopard Man,directed by genre master Jacques Tourneur. Black Alibi’s puzzling mystery is rivaled only by its feverish tension. Woolrich’s warning is clear: don’t look behind you.
Edition Specifications
- Limited to 300 copies.
- Introduction by John Pelan.
- Several reprints of old Cornell Woolrich Black Alibi covers, all in full color.
- All copies signed by John Pelan, Matt Mahurin, and Jacob McMurray.
- Sewn binding, rounded back, ribbon marker, head and tail bands, printed endpapers, top-edge stain, and other extras.
The Black Angel
Her husband called her “Angel Face.” “Avenging Angel” would be more fitting. Alberta Murray finds herself conducting a one-woman investigation to clear her husband Kirk of a murder rap and release him from Death Row. It’s a theme Cornell Woolrich perfected in The Black Angel.
Alberta suspects her husband of infidelity and pays a visit to his paramour — The Black Angel — only to find her rival murdered. Kirk is the prime suspect in the slaying, and he’s arrested, convicted, and awaiting the death penalty. Alberta is determined to find the real killer. But her time is running out. And the road to Kirk’s release is filled with obstacles: false clues, blackmail, murder plots, kidnappings, madness.
Woolrich puts us by Alberta’s side as she ventures into a wholly unfamiliar and dark world to free her husband. We see corruption laid bare, dissolving Alberta’s naïve notions of goodness and purity. She begins to morph into something unexpected, a reflection of the big city’s degeneracy and decay.
All the elements of Cornell Woolrich’s matchless style are here: the tough, resourceful heroine racing against a relentlessly ticking clock; the intricate sub-plots; the grimy underbelly of urban rot; the journey into Hell and its dizzying aftermath; the book’s startling, hair-raising conclusion. Join Alberta on her lonely quest for justice. But enter her nightmare at your own risk
Edition Specifications
- Limited to 300 copies.
- Introduction by Rex Burns.
- Several reprints of old Cornell Woolrich The Black Angel covers, all in full color.
- All copies signed by Rex Burns, Matt Mahurin, and Jacob McMurray.
- Sewn binding, rounded back, ribbon marker, head and tail bands, printed endpapers, top-edge stain, and other extras.
The Black Path of Fear
“There’s death at our shoulders all the time. Every minute, every second.” Those lines encompass the hot, sweaty fear that envelops Cornell Woolrich’s The Black Path of Fear.
Bill “Scotty” Scott is an innocent guy, down on his luck. A stroke of fate puts him at the Miami doorstep of powerful, sadistic gangster Eddie Roman. Eddie offers Scotty a job as his chauffeur. But it’s love at first sight when Scotty meets Eve, Eddie’s beautiful, abused wife. The two lovers take the fast track to Havana, with a vengeful Eddie right behind them. Scotty and Eve stay on the run, constantly looking over their shoulders in fear. When Eve turns up dead, Eddie makes sure that Scotty is framed for her murder.
With Eve gone, Scotty walks the black path of fear in a paranoid haze. Every Havana cop seems to be in Eddie’s pocket. The more Scotty protests his innocence, the closer he gets to the gallows. Woolrich captures Scotty’s desperation and loneliness. We walk the dark corners of Havana with him. We experience the bustle of the bazaars, the low-rent gin joints, the smell of corruption, the opiate intrigue of the city’s Chinatown district. Scotty’s only hope is to get to Eddie before Eddie gets to him. The chase is onÉ and for Scotty, the quicksand is rising.
The Black Path of Fear inspired the exciting 1946 film, The Chase, featuring noir icons Steve Cochran and Peter Lorre. Read the book first. It’s a taut example of why Cornell Woolrich remains a master of suspense.
Edition Specifications
- Limited to 300 copies.
- Introduction by William Hjortsberg.
- Several reprints of old Cornell Woolrich The Black Path of Fearcovers, all in full color.
- All copies signed by William Hjortsberg, Matt Mahurin, and Jacob McMurray.
- Sewn binding, rounded back, ribbon marker, head and tail bands, printed endpapers, top-edge stain, and other extras.
Rendezvous In Black
“How could a thing that was so good become so bad…how could a thing that was so right become so wrong?” These lines from Cornell Woolrich’s Rendezvous in Black set the tone for one of the darkest novels in the annals of crime fiction.
Johnny Marr is about to marry Dorothy, the love of his life since childhood. But on May 31, the night before the nuptials, Dorothy is killed by a liquor bottle errantly thrown from a passing airplane. Five men were in the plane at the time of her death. Five men are about to experience Johnny’s revenge. And May 31 will become a red-letter day for each of them. As red as blood.
But it’s not enough for Johnny to simply track the men down and murder them. He wants them to suffer the same mournful anguish that plagues him every day. His vengeance is always precisely timed, but his methods are unpredictably wild. No Woolrich character has ever gone to greater lengths to exact retribution. Johnny is willing to literally pursue his prey to the ends of the earth. His dogged determination is the stuff of nightmares. Woolrich paints this scenario in varying shades of grey and black — a model for his always bleak and pessimistic world-view.
Rendezvous in Black is the final entry in Cornell Woolrich’s “Black” series of noir-fueled novels. Unlike its predecessors, it’s driven by an obsession that borders on insanity. Read it at night — and taste the madness.
Edition Specifications
- Limited to 300 copies.
- Introduction by William F. Nolan.
- Several reprints of old Cornell Woolrich Rendezvous in Blackcovers, all in full color.
- All copies signed by William F. Nolan, Matt Mahurin, and Jacob McMurray.
- Sewn binding, rounded back, ribbon marker, head and tail bands, printed endpapers, top-edge stain, and other extras.
Stories To Be Whispered (Short Fiction, Volume 2) Note: this volume has a bumped corner as shown below.
Welcome to the cradle of Cornell Woolrich’s inimitable style. In many ways, the short story was Woolrich’s mŽtier. Each of the tales in this treasury is a taut, tough, sometimes terrifying example of Woolrich’s ability to mix murder and mood with dashes of agonizing suspense. Here you’ll find characters on desperate, fear-fueled journeys through urban underbellies and dark alleyways.
“After Dinner Story” bathes us in cold, claustrophobic fear as several men are trapped in an out-of-control elevator — where a murder has just been committed. “An Apple A Day,” “Cigarette,” and “The Heavy Sugar” take us on sinister sojourns through dark city streets, each about a character desperate to hunt down a telltale clue linking him to a dastardly crime. “Detective William Brown” chronicles the rise and fall of a brilliant but vicious detective, whose uncontrollable ambition leads to murder and a truly twisted redemption.
Suspicion and paranoia play out in “The Case of the Killer Diller,” as the songstress in a jazz troupe struggles to solve the murder of one of her bandmates; each member of the group has an airtight alibi at the time of the killing. “Guillotine” is a classic exercise in tension, as a condemned killer meticulously crafts a plot to keep his head from rolling — by executing his executioner. “All At Once, No Alice” is vintage Woolrich: a young newlywed sweats blood as he searches for his bride, who disappears after spending the night in a sleazy hotel — with no evidence that she even existed.
Between these covers is some of Cornell Woolrich’s finest work. Start early; you’ll be turning the pages long after dark.
Edition Specifications
- Limited to 300 copies.
- Introduction by Stefan Dziemianowicz.
- Several reprints of old Cornell Woolrich Stories to Be Whisperedcovers, all in full color.
- All copies signed by Stefan Dziemianowicz, Matt Mahurin, and Jacob McMurray.
- Sewn binding, rounded back, ribbon marker, head and tail bands, printed endpapers, top-edge stain, and other extras.
| Publisher | Centipede Press |
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