CONJURE WIFE

New York: Twayne Publishers, Inc., [1953]. First separate edition. Text paper age darkened, residue from label removal to front paste-down, age darkening to spine and edges of cloth, a very good copy in a good to very good price clipped dust jacket with several closed tears to the upper front panel, chips to upper corner tips, light wear to spine ends with some shallow loss, fading to edges and spine panel. Still, an uncommon book and not often found signed. (30664). Octavo, cloth. Inscribed and signed by Leiber on the front free end paper. First published in book form the preceding year in WITCHES THREE, an original anthology edited by Fletcher Pratt. "Conjure Wife, by Fritz Leiber, is easily the most frightening and (necessarily) the most thoroughly convincing of all modern horror stories. Its premise is that witchcraft still flourishes, or at any rate survives, an open secret among women, a closed book to men." "Leiber develops [the witchcraft] theme with the utmost dexterity, piling up alternate layers of the mundane and outré, until at the story's real climax..." - Damon Knight, IN SEARCH OF WONDER, pp. 40-42. The novel was the inspiration for three feature films, Weird Woman (1944), Night of the Eagle, a.k.a. Burn, Witch, Burn (1962) and Witches Brew (1980). A further note is that book version was expanded and revised from the first publication in Unknown Worlds. Barron (ed), Horror Literature 3-125. Bleiler, The Guide to Supernatural Fiction 1004. Cawthorn and Moorcock, Fantasy: The 100 Best Books 61. Jones and Newman (eds), Horror: 100 Best Books 45. Pringle, Modern Fantasy: The Hundred Best Novels 13. Survey of Modern Fantasy Literature I, pp. 314-18. Tymn (ed), Horror Literature 4-143.