Works by
James M. Cain
(aka James Mallahan Cain)
(Writer)
[1892 - 1977]

Collections

• Three Of A Kind (1944)
  Career In C Major, The Embezzler, and Double Indemnity

• Cain x 3 (1969)
  Three novels

• Three by Cain (1989)
  Serenade, Love's Lovely Counterfeit, and The Butterfly

• James M. Cain: Three Complete Novels (1994)
  Postman Always Rings Twice, Double Indemnity, and Mildred Pierce

Fiction

• The Postman Always Rings Twice (1934)
  An amoral young tramp.  A beautiful, sullen woman with an inconvenient husband.  A problem that has only one grisly solution--a solution that only creates other problems that no one can ever solve.
  
  First published in 1934 and banned in Boston for its explosive mixture of violence and eroticism, The Postman Always Rings Twice is a classic of the roman noir. It established James M. Cain as a major novelist with an unsparing vision of America's bleak underside, and was acknowledged by Albert Camus as the model for The Stranger.
  Movie (1946), Tay Garnett, Director With John Garfield And Lana Turner  DVD   VHS
  Movie (1981), Bob Rafaelson, Director With Jack Nicholson And Jessica Lange  DVD  VHS

• Double Indemnity (1936)
  Tautly narrated and excruciatingly suspenseful, Double Indemnity gives us an X-ray view of guilt, of duplicity, and of the kind of obsessive, loveless love that devastates everything it touches. First published in 1935, this novel reaffirmed James M. Cain as a virtuoso of the roman noir.
  Movie (1944), Billy Wilder, Director With Billy Wilder And Raymond Chandler  DVD  VHS

• Serenade (1937)
  Movie (1956), Anthony Mann, Director With Joan Fontaine, Mario Lanza, And Vincent Price  VHS

• Mildred Pierce (1941)
  Mildred Pierce had gorgeous legs, a way with a skillet, and a bone-deep core of toughness. She used those attributes to survive a divorce and poverty and to claw her way out of the lower middle class. But Mildred also had two weaknesses: a yen for shiftless men, and an unreasoning devotion to a monstrous daughter.
  
  Out of these elements, Cain creates a novel of acute social observation and devastating emotional violence, with a heroine whose ambitions and sufferings are never less than recognizable.
  Movie (1945), Michael Curtiz Director With Joan Crawford  DVD VHS

• Love's Lovely Counterfeit (1942)

• Career in C Major and Other Stories (1943)

• The Embezzler (1943)

• Past All Dishonor (1946)

• Sinful Woman (1947)

• The Butterfly (1947)
  Movie (Butterfly, 1981), Matt Cimber, Director With Orson Welles, Pia Zadora, And Stacy Keach  VHS

• The Moth (1948)

• Jealous Woman (1949)

• The Root Of His Evil (1951)

• Galatea (1953)
  Crime follows love triangle and plot toget rid of husband.

• Mignon (1965)

• Magician's Wife (1965)

• Rainbow's End (1975)

• The Institute (1976)

• The Baby in the Icebox: And Other Short Fiction (1981), Roy Hoopes, ed.

• Cloud Nine (1984)

• The Enchanted Isle (1985)

• 60 Years of Journalism (1986), Roy Hoope, ed.

• Career in C Major and Other Fiction (1986)

• The James M. Cain Cookbook: Guide to Home Singing, Physical Fitness and Animals (Especially Cats) (1988), Lynne Barrett and  Roy Hoopes, eds.

See also:

• Our Government (1930)

• For Men Only (1944), James Cain, ed.
  Short story collection

• Crime Novels (1997), Robert Polito, ed.
  Works by Cornell Woolrich, Edward Anderson, Horace McCoy, James M. Cain, Kenneth Fearing, and William Lindsay Gresham