THE KILLER AND THE SLAIN: A STRANGE STORY. Garden City: Doubleday, Doran & Company, Inc., 1942. Octavo, pp. [1-8] [1-2] 3-300 [301-304: blank] [Note: first and last two leaves are blanks], original gray cloth, spine panel stamped in black and gold, top edge stained dark green, fore-edge untrimmed, bottom edge rough trimmed, cream endpapers. First U.S. edition. "The life of the ineffectual and repressed narrator is made miserable by the teasing bonhomie of an uninhibited sensualist; the fear that this false friend may seduce his wife drives him to murder, but he gradually takes on the psychological and physical characteristics of his victim, eventually embarking upon a merciless persecution of a man who strongly resembles his old self. Has an evil spirit transferred itself from victim to killer? Mach more effective than Walpole's earlier exercise in 'romantic macabre,' PORTRAIT OF A MAN WITH RED HAIR (1925), which features a deranged sadist of a less subtle stripe." - Barron (ed), Fantasy and Horror (1999) 4-155. Barron (ed), Horror Literature 3-202. Bleiler (1978), p. 202. Reginald 14822. A very good copy in a good worn and chipped dust jacket. (#161530).
Price: $75.00
First edition so stated on copyright page.