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[1 page (title)] & 12 text leaves, manual type on onion-skin paper (rectos only). 11x8½, together inside black paper folder with paper title label in old manual type on front cover.

James M. Cain's own personal copy of his first short story, “Pastorale,” which was originally published in March 1928 in H.L. Mencken's The American Mercury. Recovered from a lot of Cain's personal documents. One of Cain's blackest murder stories, with a wild, husband-killing plot that foreshadowed Cain's later masterworks, Double Indemnity and The Postman Always Rings Twice. David Madden, in his study of Cain, calls it his best short story.