The Night of the Hunter.    [New York]: Harper & Brothers, [1953].

First edition.

Octavo. [x], [1]-273, [1, blank], [1, colophon], [3, blank] pp. With signed limitation page inserted at front. Publisher’s black cloth backstrip over blue cloth boards, spine lettered in white. Front board mildly creased (yet still solid; this may have been result of a publisher’s error on this copy and not from later damage), mild rubbing to corners and spine. This copy with first edition dust jacket (not called-for, as mentioned above). Jacket spine slightly sunned, some mild edgewear. A near fine copy in a very good jacket.

First edition, one of 1,000 copies signed by the author on a tipped-in sheet at front. Although not called-for on this edition (as the jacket wasn’t finished when this was issued), this copy has a first edition dust jacket.

This book, the author’s first, is a gripping suspense novel and was a finalist for the National Book Award in 1955. The story is about an ex-convict named Harry Powell, who, acting on a story from a now-dead cellmate, cons the cellmate’s widow into marriage and telling him where the loot from a robbery is hidden. When this doesn’t work, he murders the woman, and chases her children, who ran away when they realized how evil he was. This is based on a true story of Harry Powers who was hanged in 1932 for the murder of two widows and three children in West Virginia.

Of course, this book is the basis for the now-classic noir film starring Robert Mitchum, Lillian Gish and Shelley Winters, directed by Charles Laughton in 1955. Although this film was a flop at the time of its release, its expressionistic style and amazing performances (particularly by Mitchum as the sociopathic Powell) has been extremely influential to current directors such as David Lynch, Martin Scorsese, Terence Malick, Jean Renoir, and the Coen Brothers. Sadly, it was Laughton’s only directing effort.

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ID: 3103

$ 500