Cornell Woolrich

Cornell George Hopley-Woolrich was born on this date (December 3) in 1903. He passed away in 1968. He wrote most of his novels and stories under the name Cornell Woolrich, but a few, such as my favorite, Phantom Lady, were published under the by-line of William Irish. A number of his works were adapted for film and television, often under other titles. The most famous of these was the Alfred Hitchcock film, Rear Window.

So why am I doing this birthday post here rather than at Gumshoes, Gats, and Gams? Well aside from the fact that that blog is currently dormant, Woolrich did write a few stories involving the fantastic.

But I want to do something a little different. Harlan Ellison has a story entitled “Tired Old Man“, which he says is based on something that happened to him. Ellison had gone to a party and got to talking to an older gentlemen there. Ellison didn’t get his name. Later when he described the man to his host and some other friends, they all insisted that the person Ellison had been talking to was Cornell Woolrich. Only none of them saw him there.

Ellison explains all this in his introduction to the collection No Doors, No Windows, which is where the story was first published.  “Tired Old Man” is worth a read. Ellison adds some fantastic elements and a surprising amount of emotional depth to what is a brief story. I first read it years ago, and it’s stuck with me ever since.

I checked this morning to see what is available by Woolrich in ebook form. I’d bought the Centipede Press editions when they came out a few years ago, but I wanted something a little more portable.

There’s a lot that’s been published in recent years. I bought five short story collections. Here’s one of them, An Obsession with Death and Dying. And if you want a novel, start with Phantom Lady or Night Has a Thousand Eyes.