UNDER CAPRICORN

New York: The Macmillan Company, 1938. Near fine in very good plus jacket.. First US edition of Simpson's historical gothic, her second novel adapted for the screen by Alfred Hitchcock. Simpson was a member of the Detection Club along with Dorothy Sayers, Agatha Christie, Baroness Orczy, and a host of lesser lights, as well as the founder of the Oxford Women's Dramatic Society; a notable early work, ENTER SIR JOHN, joined the two worlds of theatre and murder and was the first of her novels to be filmed by Hitchcock, as MURDER! (1930). UNDER CAPRICORN was the second, eliciting wildly varied reactions. The film was a box-office failure, starring Ingrid Bergman and suffering the repercussions of her contemporary scandal; though derided by critics disappointed to find a guilt-ridden gothic romance of colonial Australia where they expected a thriller, it was also praised by Cahiers du Cinema as one of Hitchcock's best. The novel, like the film, is most interested not in the immediacy of murder, but in its aftermath, concealment, and consequences. 8'' x 5.25''. Original bright green cloth. In original price-clipped pictorial dust jacket. 305, [1] pages. Light edgewear to boards. Moderate scuffing to jacket, with light chipping and small closed tears to extremities with two tape repairs to verso; larger chip to lower corner of rear panel.