D’entre les morts.

BOILEAU, Pierre and Thomas Narcejac (writing as Boileau-Narcejac).

$7,200.00

Item Number: 74068

Paris:, 1954.

First edition of the French crime fiction duo’s third novel, preceding the British edition by two years and the American by three of the roman noir that was turned into the 1958 Hollywood classic Vertigo, starring James Stewart and Kim Novak, directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Octavo, original wrappers. Presentation copy, inscribed by both authors on the half-title page, “A Madame Cordroc ‘h, avec notre gratitude et l’homage de notre défèrente sympathie  Th. Narcejac Pierre Boileau.” Housed in a custom half morocco clamshell box. In very good condition.

The story concerns a former detective who suffers from vertigo. He is hired to follow the wife of a friend who is puzzled by her strange behavior. The detective becomes obsessed with the woman, eventually falling in love with her, but unable to explain her strange trances and her belief in a previous life. When she falls to her death from a tower, he is unable to save her due to his fear of heights. He experiences a psychotic break. After his partial recovery he encounters a woman who is nearly the image of his dead love, and he becomes obsessed with her. In the end she turns out to be the same person he was in love with—an actress who was hired by his friend, in order to hide the murder of his actual wife. It was the basis for the 1958 Alfred Hitchcock film Vertigo, starring James Stewart and Kim Novak. Attracting significant scholarly criticism, it replaced Citizen Kane as the best film ever made in the 2012 British Film Institute's Sight & Sound critics' poll. It has appeared repeatedly in polls of the best films by the American Film Institute, including a 2007 ranking as the ninth-greatest American movie of all-time.