Description

“A WHISPER THAT SOUNDED LIKE A SNAKE, LICKING ITS TONGUE IN AND OUT”:
FIRST EDITION OF CAIN’S THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE, INSCRIBED BY CAINCAIN, James M. The Postman Always Rings Twice. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1934. Octavo, original orange cloth, original dust jacket. Housed in custom clamshell box.

First edition of Cain’s first novel, a definitive noir classic, inscribed by him on the front free endpaper, “To Ray Cooper, With best regards & the hope he enjoys it, James M. Cain. June 6, 1979, Hyattville, Md.”

“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). Initially banned in Canada and Boston, and a model for Camus’ The Stranger, the novel was adapted to film three times: in 1942 by Luchino Visconti, in 1946 by Tay Garnett, and in 1981 by Bob Rafelson.

Interior fine, cloth with a bit of light soiling to rear panel, very mild toning to spine. Scarce dust jacket exceptionally bright, with slight toning to spine and a few repairs to verso. Most rare and desirable inscribed by Cain.