Cornell Woolrich - Nightwebs (A Collection of Stories)

This is, we hope, a comprehensive checklist of the writings of Cornell Woolrich. It has been close to twenty-five years in the making, and the labor involved (especially for Messrs. Knott and Thailing) has been of Herculean proportions. But we now believe we have tracked down everything that Woolrich wrote.

In Part I, Novels and Story Collections, each book by Woolrich is given a code designation consisting of (1) the initials of the book’s byline (CW, WI or GH) and (2) the book’s chronological number among the titles published under that byline. Thus The Doom Stone is CW 16 — the sixteenth book published under Woolrich’s own name; Six Nights of Mystery Is WI 13; Fright is GH 2.

In Part II, Woolrich’s Unfinished Manuscripts, codes have proven unnecessary, and the reader should be pleased to find that this section resembles an essay more than a computer printout.

In Part III, Short Fiction, every Woolrich story or novelette is given a code designation consisting of (i) the name, initials, or first syllable of the magazine of original publication, and (2) the story’s chronological number among the Woolrich tales published in that magazine. Thus “You Bet Your Life,” the twenty-eighth story Woolrich published in Detective Fiction Weekly, is DFW 28; “I.O.U.,” the seventh story he published in Double Detective, is Doub D 7. The short-fiction coding takes no account of the byline under which any story was published, for the various bylines have no functional significance in Woolrich’s fiction, and stories originally published under one byline have frequently been reprinted under another. It should be noted that due to editors’ vagaries there are many changes in the texts of Woolrich’s stories from one printing to the next; most of the substantial revisions and abridgments are reflected herein. It should also be noted that Mike Shayne’s Mystery Magazine and Rex Stout’s Mystery Magazine (or Monthly), which reprinted several Woolrich tales apiece but never published any of his stories as originals, are respectively abbreviated MSMM and RSMM. Finally, all reprints of Woolrich stories in the magazine variously known as Saint Detective Magazine, Saint Mystery Magazine, and Saint Magazine are listed as being in SMM.

In Part III, the original title of each story is followed by the story’s alternate titles and by data on its subsequent appearances in books of Woolrich’s short fiction, anthologies, and other magazines. Only the more significant anthology and magazine reprintings are listed here, but all appearances in Woolrich’s own books of short fiction are listed. Thus one can use this checklist to pursue any Woolrich story from its book appearance to its magazine and anthology appearances, or from its original magazine publication to its appearance in another magazine, an anthology, or a book of Woolrich’s short fiction.

Part IV, Woolrich as Adapted, deals primarily with citation of and comment on the movie adaptations of Woolrich’s work from 1929 to the present. Some incomplete notes on radio and television adaptations of Woolrich are also included.

We would like to thank the following gentlemen for their assistance at one stage or another of the work: Michael Avallone, William J. Clark, Frederic Dannay, Dan J. Marlowe, Frank D. McSherry, Jr., Norman Miller, Robert B. Miller, Jr., Hans Stefan Santesson, Philip Schwendeman, Charles Shibuk, and Donald A. Yates. Miss Pat Erhardt deserves special thanks for her help at every stage of the project.

In 1964 Anthony Boucher wrote of Woolrich’s bibliography that it “is so inextricably confused that no one has ever mastered it (least of all himself).” We grieve that neither Boucher nor Woolrich lived to see the job of mastering it completed, and we wish our readers well in their explorations herein.

1. Cover Charge (Boni & Liveright, 1926).

NOTE: Woolrich later turned this novel into a three-act play of the same title, which was copyrighted in 1931 and renewed in 1959, but which seems never to have been performed.

2. Children of the Ritz (Boni & Liveright, 1927). Serialized as CH 3.

3. Times Square (Liveright, 1929). Serialized as LGS 1.

4. A Young Man’s Heart (Mason, 1930).

5. The Time of Her Life (Liveright, 1931).

6. Manhattan Love Song (Godwin, 1932).

6½. I Love You, Paris (1933, unpublished).

NOTE: In his manuscript autobiography, Woolrich relates how he came to write this last in his cycle of early romantic novels, and how he wound up throwing it in the garbage.

7. The Bride Wore Black (Simon & Schuster, 1940).

NOTE: In this, his first and perhaps best-known mystery novel, Woolrich, like Hammett and Chandler and a host of others, drew on motifs he had previously used in shorter work. Thus, the famous balcony-murder scene is derived from AAF 1 (“I’m Dangerous Tonight”) and the climax from BM 11 (“Borrowed Crime”). But in the novel, the earlier material is fused into a new and organic whole. The book has been frequently reprinted under its original title, and once (Pyramid Book — 80, 1953) as Beware the Lady. The Collier paperback edition (—AS 606, 1964) contains an excellent introduction by Anthony Boucher.

8. The Black Curtain (Simon & Schuster, 1941). Expanded from DFW 30 and DD 15.

9. Black Alibi (Simon & Schuster, 1942). Expanded from SDM 1.

10. The Black Angel (Doubleday Doran, 1943). Expanded from DD 2 and BM 6.

NOTE: The most recent paperback edition (Ace Book — 06505, 1969) contains an afterword by Michael Avallone.

11. The Black Path of Fear (Doubleday Doran, 1944). Expanded from DFW 49.

12. Rendezvous in Black (Rinehart, 1948). Revision of CW 7.

13. Savage Bride (Gold Medal Book — 136, 1950).

14. Nightmare (Dodd Mead, 1956). Contents: I’ll Take You Home, Kathleen (DS 4); Screen Test (DD 1); Three O’Clock (DFW 36); Nightmare (A 20); I.O.U. (Doub D 7); Bequest (DT 2).

15. Violence (Dodd Mead, 1958). Contents: Don’t Wait Up for Me Tonight (Story 2); Guillotine (BM 12); That New York Woman (DD 25); Murder, Obliquely (Shad 1); The Moon of Montezuma (F 1); The Corpse in the Statue of Liberty (DD 5).

16. Hotel Room (Random House, 1958). Contents: The Night of June 20, 1896 (new); The Night of April 6, 1917 (new); The Night of November 11, 1918 (new); The Night of February 17, 1924 (J 1); The Night of October 24, 1929 (new); The Night of... (new); The Night of September 30, 1957 (new).

17. Death Is My Dancing Partner (Pyramid Book — G374, 1959).

18. Beyond the Night (Avon Book — T354, 1959). Contents: The Moon of Montezuma (F 1); Somebody’s Clothes — Somebody’s Life (F-SF 1); The Lamp of Memory (A 13); My Lips Destroy (HS 1); The Number’s Up (new); Music from the Dark (DM 1).

19. The Doom Stone (Avon Book — T408, 1960). Revision of A 16.

20. The Ten Faces of Cornell Woolrich (Simon & Schuster, 1965). Contents: One Drop of Blood (EQMM 4); Somebody on the Phone (DF’W 26); Debt of Honor (Doub D 7); The Man Upstairs (MBM 2); The Most Exciting Show in Town (DFW 10); The Night Reveals (Story 1); Steps Going Up (BM 12); The Humming Bird Comes Home (PD 2); Adventures of a Fountain Pen (DS 6); I Won’t Take a Minute (DFW 41).

NOTE: This volume contains an introduction by Ellery Queen.

21. The Dark Side of Love (Walker, 1965). Contents: Je t’Aime (EQMM 6); The Clean Fight (new); The Idol with the Clay Bottom (new); The Poker-Player’s Wife (SMM 1); Story To Be Whispered (SMM 2); Somebody Else’s Life (F-SF 1); I’m Ashamed (new); Too Nice a Day to Die (B 1).

22. Nightwebs (Harper & Row, 1971). Contents: Graves for the Living (DM 2); The Red Tide (DS 5); The Corpse Next Door (DFW 20); You’ll Never See Me Again (DS 3); Dusk to Dawn (BM 8); Murder at the Automat (DD 10); Death in the Air (DFW 17); Mamie ‘n’ Me (AAF 3); The Screaming Laugh (CD 1); One and a Half Murders (BBD 1); Dead on Her Feet (DD 7); One Night in Barcelona (MBM 6); The Penny-a-Worder (EQMM 1); The Number’s Up (CW 18); Too Nice a Day to Die (B 1); Life Is Weird Sometimes (new).