Compulsion
by Levin, Meyer
- Used
- near fine
- Hardcover
- first
- Condition
- Near Fine/Very Good
- Seller
-
SANTA BARBARA, California, United States
Payment Methods Accepted
About This Item
New York: Simon & Schuster, 1956. Nice copy with First Printing stated on copyright page. Unmarked, tight and square. Basis for excellent film done in 1959 with Bradford Dillman, Dean Stockwell and Orson Welles. Book is bound in read and black cloth with gold stamping and red topstain. Sharp tips, light soiling to small part of jacket's spine. Spine ends cupped a bit. Textblock tight, square and clean. Price intact jacket has tiny chips at spine ends and another tiny chip at top of rear panel. Scarce in first printing and hard to find in any printing. In mylar. . First American Edition. Cloth. Near Fine/Very Good. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall.
Synopsis
The 20th century was not very old when Chicago played host to what was freely billed "the crime of the century." It happened in 1924, when two rich young men kidnapped and murdered a boy simply to exercise what they believed to be their superior intellectual skills. Both Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb were sons of wealthy Jewish families in Chicago, arrogant in their sense of entitlement, sure they were above the law. Their vicious kidnapping and killing of Bobby Franks horrified the world, and the two were spared the death penalty only as the result of an extraordinary appeal by their defense attorney, the legendary Clarence Darrow.Novelist Meyer Levin covered the Leopold-Loeb trial as a student reporter and, some 30 years later, returned to the subject -- and the reporter's perspective -- in novelized form in Compulsion, published in 1956. Fiction allowed Levin to project himself inside the heads of the murderers (Leopold was still alive and in prison at the time), to explore elements in their behavior -- such as their homosexual tendencies -- not easily confronted at that time. The novel transforms Leopold and Loeb into Judd Steiner and Artie Strauss, their victim into Paulie Kessler and their defense attorney into Jonathan Wilk. Levin's novel is in two parts, "The Crime of the Century" and "The Trial of the Century." It explores the reasons the young men chose to commit a "perfect" crime -- a crime that was otherwise meaningless -- and it dramatizes the remarkable summation by their attorney that saved them from the gallows.Interestingly, the publication (and subsequent film adaptation) of Compulsion angered one person -- Nathan Leopold, who had been an exemplary and even heroic prisoner, and was paroled in 1958, after Erle Stanley Gardner and Carl Sandburg testified at his parole hearing. (Loeb, who had become surly and violent in prison, was murdered there in a knife fight in 1936.) Leopold was offended by the novel and film, and he sued both Meyer Levin and the film's producer Richard Zanuck for invasion of privacy. The case dragged for over a decade; when it was decided in 1970, Leopold was ruled to be a public figure and not entitled to the protection of privacy. He died the following year.
Reviews
(Log in or Create an Account first!)
Details
- Bookseller
- Timothy Norlen Bookseller
(US)
- Bookseller's Inventory #
- 015070
- Title
- Compulsion
- Author
- Levin, Meyer
- Format/Binding
- Hardcover
- Book Condition
- Used - Near Fine
- Jacket Condition
- Very Good
- Edition
- First American Edition
- Publisher
- Simon & Schuster
- Place of Publication
- New York
- Date Published
- 1956
- Size
- 8vo - over 7¾" - 9&f
- Bookseller catalogs
- Modern First Editions; Books Into Film;
Terms of Sale
Timothy Norlen Bookseller
Books sent out within 24 - 48 hours upon receipt of order. Return guarantee, with full refund including original shipping costs for up to 15 days after delivery if an item arrives that is not as described.
About the Seller
Timothy Norlen Bookseller
Biblio member since 2019
SANTA BARBARA, California
About Timothy Norlen Bookseller
I am a internet based bookstore that specializes in Modern First Editions, film sources, Mystery and Detective fiction and Western Americana. I have approximately 10,000 books, primarily first editions with about 1300 of them signed by the author. I try and stock only books that are sound, clean and attractive.
Glossary
Some terminology that may be used in this description includes:
- Tight
- Used to mean that the binding of a book has not been overly loosened by frequent use.
- Jacket
- Sometimes used as another term for dust jacket, a protective and often decorative wrapper, usually made of paper which wraps...
- Copyright page
- The page in a book that describes the lineage of that book, typically including the book's author, publisher, date of...
- Spine
- The outer portion of a book which covers the actual binding. The spine usually faces outward when a book is placed on a shelf....
- Cloth
- "Cloth-bound" generally refers to a hardcover book with cloth covering the outside of the book covers. The cloth is stretched...
Frequently asked questions
This Book’s Categories
The Great Formosa Hoax
George Psalmanazar played a grand prank in 1703, pretending to be a resident of the island of Formosa. His book took London by storm. Learn more...
How to tell if a signature is genuine
Author's signatures can undoubtedly increase the value of a rare book or first edition. The more scarce the book is, the more an autograph adds to its value. But how to tell if the signature is real? Find out how you can avoid common pitfalls in identifying an author's signature.
