Cornell Woolrich was born in 1903. He began writing fiction at Columbia University in the late 1920's. His early works are not yet noir (the genre had not yet really emerged) but rather were in the F. Scott Fitzgerald / Romantic Egoist tradition. When the Depression caused him to lose his markets, he turned to the pulp magazines to survive, changing his style to one of dark, brooding suspense. During the 1930's and 40's Woolrich was, along with Raymond Chandler, James M. Cain and Dashiell Hammett, one of the creators of the roman noir genre. Sadly, Woolrich died an alcoholic recluse in 1969.

Woolrich's work was adapted into numerous motion pictures, the best being Robert Siodmak's Phantom Lady (1944) and Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window (1954).

Woolrich's writing is wonderfully descriptive. His stories are suspenseful and surprising. I Married a Dead Man (written under the name "William Irish" and recently re-released as part of Penguin's Crime Fiction series) is a great place to start reading Woolrich. Here's an excerpt from the beginning:

The girl was standing still in front of the door. Perfectly still. The way you stand when you've been standing for a long time; so long you've forgotten about moving, have grown used to not moving. Her finger was to the push button, but it wasn't pushing any more. No pressure was being exerted; no sound came from the battery behind the door-frame. It was as though she had been holding it that way so long, she had forgotten to take that, too, away.

She was about nineteen. A dreary, hopeless nineteen, not a bright shiny one. Her features wer small and well turned, but there was something too pinched about her face, too wan about her coloring, too thin about her cheeks. Beauty was there, implicit, ready to reclaim her face if it was given the chance, but something had beaten it back, was keeping it hovering at a distance, unable to alight in its intended realization.

• 1926-Cover Charge.
• 1927-Children of the Ritz. Sold to Hollywood as a movie.
• 1929-Times Square
• 1930-A Young Man's Heart
• 1931-The Time of Her Life
• 1932-Manhattan Love Song

• 1940-The Bride Wore Black (original title Beware the Lady)
• 1941-The Black Curtain
• 1942-The Black Alibi
• 1943-The Black Angel
• 1944-The Black Path of Fear
• 1948-Rendezvous in Black
• 1987-Into the Night- An unfinished manuscript finished by Lawrence Block.

• 1942-Phantom Lady
• 1944-Deadline at Dawn
• 1947-Waltz into Darkness
• 1948-I Married a Dead Man

• 1945-Night has a Thousand Eyes
• 1950-Fright