After-Dinner Story is a 1944 short story collection by American crime writer Cornell Woolrich. It consists of six stories, including one of his best known works, Rear Window which Alfred Hitchcock made into a film in 1954 starring James Stewart and Grace Kelly.

Cornell Woolrich is known for his writing of noir stories and these six certainly fit the bill. I actually liked them all but Rear Window did stand out as a superior story. I also thought “The Night Reveals” and the title piece “After-Dinner Story” were excellent as well.

Many of Woolrich’s stories were originally published under his pen-name of William Irish, but whether under his own name or not, his stories all have a style and drama of their own. Although a couple of these stories are rather dated and are written from the point of view of the day, this is an outstanding collection. ( )

After-Dinner Story is a terrific collection of short stories by the master of suspense, Cornell Woolrich. Everything from revenge for an unsolved murder, to a man convalescing who believes a man has murdered his wife but can’t get anyone to believe him, to pyromania, and a writer whose story eerily resembles an actual murder, make up a terrific collection. For those who love great stories, told as only Woolrich was capable, this is fantastic.

The highlights for me were After-Dinner Story, The Night Reveals, Rear Window (its original title was It Had to Be Murder), and Murder-Story. The beginning of After-Dinner Story, as a group of people are trapped in an elevator which has crashed is exciting, but it is the dinner party thrown by someone who has invited all the survivors which becomes enthralling. It has a fabulous ending.

The plot of Rear Window is well-known because of the Hitchcock film, which basically follows Woolrich’s original story with a few cast alterations. The Night Reveals might be the most involving, and was adapted for radio’s Suspense, as was After-Dinner Story. Like Murder-Story, it is great stuff. People can nit-pick a bit of implausibility here and there all they like, but Woolrich makes his tales so involving, few really care.

Great writing from a great writer. Let everyone else waste their time with the latest pretentious offering masquerading as something special you just “have” to read — i.e. Girl On a Train or Fifty Shades, etc. — and enjoy a real writer at the height of his craft. Most of these stories are fairly famous — at least to those who appreciate the craft of writing. Rear Window, as mentioned, was adapted for film, as were several of Woolrich’s stories and novels, but a lot were also adapted for radio. Robert Young and Margo portrayed the main characters in Suspense’s adaptation of The Night Reveals, and Suspense’s adaptation of After-Dinner Story starred Otto Kruger.

Read the stories first, however, because as good as the adaptations for radio were, there is nothing else quite like reading a Woolrich story. ( )