Woolrich, Cornell (1903-1968), was an American author of suspense fiction. Woolrich was known more for style, atmosphere, and breathless pace than for consistent and believable plots. He specialized in devices such as the race against time and situations in which a character mysteriously vanishes. His tales were made more suspenseful because the reader was never sure whether they would end happily.
Woolrich’s best-known novels include The Bride Wore Black (1940), The Black Curtain (1941), Black Alibi (1942), and The Black Path of Fear (1944). One of his many short stories was adapted into the famous Alfred Hitchcock motion picture Rear Window (1954). Woolrich also wrote several books under the name William Irish, notably Phantom Lady (1942). A selection of Woolrich’s many short stories was published as Night & Fear in 2004, after his death.
Cornell George Hopley-Woolrich was born on Dec. 4, 1903, in New York City. He began his literary career in the 1920’s. His first novels followed the Jazz Age tradition of American author F. Scott Fitzgerald, writing about the pleasure-seeking young people of his generation. In the 1930’s, Woolrich turned to writing crime fiction for Black Mask and other magazines that specialized in this type of writing. Woolrich was a solitary person who lived with his mother in residential hotels most of his life. Woolrich died on Sept. 25, 1968.
