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IF I DIE BEFORE I WAKE.
New York: Simon and Schuster, 1938. Octavo, pp. [1-6] [1-2] 3-309 [310: ad] [311-314: blank], original black cloth, front stamped in blind, spine stamped in gold, top edge stained red. First edition. Inscribed and signed by King (dated, 9/12/39) on the front free end paper. Crime novel in which a faked murder becomes real. Filmed in 1947 by Orson Welles, starring Welles and Rita Hayworth (his then wife) as The Lady From Shanghai. [Reference: Hubin, p. 470, Johnson, The Dark Page I, p. 176, Silver and Ward (eds.), Film Noir: An Encyclopedic Reference to the American Style (3rd edition), pp. 164-165. Selby, Dark City: The Film Noir, p. 157].
DECOY bound with IF I DIE BEFORE I WAKE.
New York: Ace Books, Inc., [1953]. Small octavo, pictorial wrappers. First edition and first paperback edition. Ace double D-9. Paperback original of the Michael Morgan novel. Hard boiled Hollywood novel. Bill Pronzini writes in 1001 Midnights, The Aficionado's Guide to Mystery and Detective Fiction (pp. 580-582), "Decoy is still one of the giants (midgets?), a novel so deliciously bad that it must be read again and again to be fully savored and appreciated." [Reference: Jaffery, S., Double Trouble: A Bibliographic Chronicle of Ace Mystery Doubles, pp. 6-7].