BLACK ALIBI

First edition with these illustrations. Limited edition. Signed by the author of the introduction and the illustrators. Publisher's original black cloth with titles in silver to the spine, with colour illustration by Matt Mahurin to the upper board. In the Matt Mahurin illustrated dustwrapper. Top edge red. Black silk bookmark. Illustrated endpapers and with colour and black and white plates by Matt Mahurin throughout. Colour facsimiles of previous hardcover and paperback editions and of the 1943 film adaptation poster, together with a black and white photograph of the author Cornell Woolrich at the front. A fine copy, the binding square and firm, the contents are clean throughout, and without previous owners' inscriptions or stamps. Complete with the fine original dustwrapper, which is without fading, loss, or tears.

Issued in an edition of 300 copies, this example is numbered 198 and signed by the illustrators Matt Mahurin and Jacob McMurray and the author of the introduction John Pelan in black and green ink, respectively, on the colophon. 'Black Alibi' was first published in 1942 by Simon & Schuster, New York. The novel was the basis for the 1943 horror film 'The Leopard Man', directed by Jacques Tourneur and starring Dennis O'Keefe, Jean Brooks, and Margo. It was later identified as one of the first American films to attempt a realistic portrayal of a serial killer (although the term had not yet been coined). 'Black Alibi' is one of six volumes included in the Cornell Woolrich 'Black' series released by Centipede Press in 2015. Other books in this series are: 'The Bride Wore Black', 'The Black Angel', 'The Black Curtain', 'The Black Path of Fear', and 'Rendezvous in Black'.