The Night of the Hunter

The bestselling, National Book Award–finalist novel that inspired Charles Laughton’s expressionist horror classic starring Robert Mitchum and Shelley Winters.

Two young children, Pearl and John Harper, are being raised alone by their mother in Cresap’s Landing, Ohio. Their father Ben has just been executed for killing two men in the course of an armed robbery. Ben never told anyone where he hid the ten thousand dollars he stole; not his widow Willa, not his lawyer, nor his cell-mate Henry “Preacher” Powell. But Preacher, with his long history of charming his way into widows’ hearts and lives, has an inkling that Ben's money could be within his reach. As soon as he is free, Preacher makes his way up the river to visit the Harper family where—he hopes—a little child shall lead him to the fortune that he seeks.

Foreword by JULIA KELLER

Davis Grubb (1919–1980) was an American short-story writer and novelist. Born in Moundsville, West Virginia, he moved to New York City in 1940 to be a writer. His stories were published in magazines such asCollier’s, Cosmopolitan, and Woman’s Home Companion, and in three collections.The Night of the Hunter, the first of his ten novels, was an instant bestseller and finalist for the National Book Award. Some of his short stories were adapted for television on The Alfred Hitchcock Hour and Rod Serling’sNight Gallery; his novel Fools’ Parade was the basis for a 1971 film starring James Stewart.