Hotel Room

by Cornell Woolrich

extremely rare,very good condition

205 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 1958

About the author

Cornell Woolrich is widely regarded as the twentieth century’s finest writer of pure suspense fiction. The author of numerous classic novels and short stories (many of which were turned into classic films) such as Rear Window, The Bride Wore Black, The Night Has a Thousand Eyes, Waltz Into Darkness, and I Married a Dead Man, Woolrich began his career in the 1920s writing mainstream novels that won him comparisons to F. Scott Fitzgerald. The bulk of his best-known work, however, was written in the field of crime fiction, often appearing serialized in pulp magazines or as paperback novels. Because he was prolific, he found it necessary to publish under multiple pseudonyms, including "William Irish" and "George Hopley" [...] Woolrich lived a life as dark and emotionally tortured as any of his unfortunate characters and died, alone, in a seedy Manhattan hotel room following the amputation of a gangrenous leg. Upon his death, he left a bequest of one million dollars to Columbia University, to fund a scholarship for young writers.

Source: [http://www.hardcasecrime.com/books_bi...]

Reviews

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

The thesis of Cornell Woolrich’s Hotel Room is that “hotel rooms . . . are a lot like people”: they begin new and optimistic, and then they decay until they are torn down to make way for office buildings. (Okay, so maybe the analogy isn’t perfect.) The stories in this collection all take place in Room 923 of New York’s (fictitious) St. Anselm Hotel. Woolrich dedicates the book to his mother, with whom he lived for more than 20 years in a hotel. The first story begins on June 20, 1896, the day of the hotel’s grand opening, and the last story takes place on the hotel’s final night, September 30, 1957, which happens to be one week before the death of Woolrich’s mother. If you are a Woolrich fan, it is easy to read all sorts of psycho-significance into Hotel Room’s proceedings. If you are not a fan, then you are left with a collection of entertaining if overwritten stories, which pluck seven dramatic nights from Room 923’s sixty-one year history.

[Izzy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Uncomfortable post-modern read.
Pretentious writing style - the kind that doesn’t really make sense.
Read on a train hungover and had to stop.

I respect the book for what it is, I think if I kept reading I would’ve rated it highly but just found it too uncomfortable of a read - quite a graphic gory writing style which is interesting given it focuses on a lot of the everyday and mundane details of the human existence.

[Tammy Downing · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting story about the events that happen in room 923 of the same hotel over a span of many years. Each of the occupants of this room has something weird happen to them. It is a cool premise and well written. I enjoyed this book very much.

[Jyoti Sharma · Rating 5 out of 5]

Woolrich is one of my favorite authors and this book is as good as it gets. 61 years of America seen through his eyes - amazing👍

[Gina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautifully written. Apt. I cried through and more when reality struck. The ending was a masterpiece. It takes a grandmaster to put plain words into so much and draw out s much of feeling.

Note - this is not a mystery book. However if you are familiar with Cornell's work, you will understand how great a master he is.

Book = tender + gentle yet with a bite.