His collection was sold back in 2010 and the gentleman was well known to gather the best copies he could find of modern masterpiece first editions and detective fiction on the market.

Housed in a high-quality quarter leather solander box with leather tips. Hardcover bound in publisher s black paper-covered boards over white spine cloth stamped in red in the original black and white dust jacket. Signed on the title page by Robert Bloch. Robert Bloch (1959) Psycho US first edition, first printing, published by Simon & Schuster. Part noir detective story, part breathless tabloidism, the novel remains seductive in its own way.Hardcover.

The book makes for a short read it’s cinematic with or without Hitchcock’s influence. Ultimately, Psycho sets out to shock, though much of what may have seemed disturbing, devious or prurient in 1959 isn’t quite as scandalous now.

While there’s violence to Bloch’s story, it’s no longer “one of the most disgusting murders in all screen history”, as one critic described the film in 1960 – even though Bloch is able to describe things that Hitchcock couldn’t have shown on screen at the time. A head-scarf concealed the hair and the glassy eyes stared inhumanely, but it wasn’t a mask, it couldn’t be … It was the face of a crazy old woman.” Pyscho “Then she did see it there – a face, peering through the curtains, hanging in midair like a mask. With terrible irony, however, fleeing puts Mary in far greater danger at the Bates Motel.īloch’s tale – based on the real-life murderer, Ed Gein – contains the seeds of what have since become horror film staples: a woman left to her own devices, an isolated location, the suggestions of sex – then the gore ( see also Halloween).

Then, one day, someone does stop: Mary Crane, a 27-year-old secretary who has stolen $40,000 from her boss and is on the run with the cash. Together they run an out-of-the-way motel, the kind of place where no one stops anymore. Even if they haven’t seen the film, much of it has passed into common knowledge and cinema lore.īookish Norman Bates lives with his mother, a manipulative, cruel woman who appears to both traumatise and titillate her son. Now, however, there are few surprises left for contemporary readers. He didn’t want audiences to guess the twist before the movie landed in cinemas the following year. With Hitchcock’s Psycho part of cinema legend, how does Robert Bloch’s original novel compare?Īs the story goes, when Alfred Hitchcock secured the film rights for Robert Bloch’s 1959 novel, Pyscho, he bought up all the remaining copies of the book, too.

Psycho by Robert Bloch