The Hands of Orlac

The Hands of Orlac, Renard, Maurice, Published by Souvenir Press, London, 1981. First UK edition. Translated From the French by Iain White. 8vo up to 9½" tall. 301pp. Black boards with silver titles. Volume is in fine, unread condition; housed in a fine, unclipped jacket with the lightest of shelf wear.

First published in 1920 in French as "Les Mains d'Orlac." The First English translation was published by E.P. Dutton, New York, 1929. The Hands of Orlac was the basis for 4 films including the 1935 Hollywood version with Peter Lorre entitled "Mad Love".

The story centres round a world-famous concert pianist, Stephen Orlac, whose hands are horribly mutilated in a train accident. An eminent surgeon grafts on a new pair of hands, but with ghastly results, for Orlac now finds himself possessed, not of musical skills, but by strange and terrible impulses. The hands that he has been given were those of a man guillotined for murder, and the spirit of the dead man has survived in his hands to live again in the unfortunate pianist.