Surgam

The Philolexian Foundation

In service to the Philolexian Society of Columbia University · Founded MDCCCII

The Philolexian Society of Columbia University

Cornell Woolrich

Columbia College, Class of 1925

American novelist and short-story writer, chiefly of crime and suspense fiction.

From Notable Alumni · Foundation editorial

American novelist and short-story writer, chiefly of crime and suspense fiction. As a Columbia freshman he published the best-selling novel Cover Charge (1926). Later works adapted into films including Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window (1954, from his short story 'It Had to Be Murder').

Vital

Full name
Cornell Woolrich

Columbia & the Society

Columbia
Class of 1925 (Columbia College)

Works (98)

  1. 1926 Cover Charge
  2. 1927 Children of the Ritz
  3. 1929 Times Square
  4. 1930 A Young Man's Heart
  5. 1931 The Time of Her Life
  6. 1932 Manhattan Love Song
  7. 1940 The Bride Wore Black
  8. 1941 The Black Curtain
  9. 1941 Marihuana
  10. 1942 Black Alibi
  11. 1942 Phantom Lady
  12. 1943 The Black Angel
  13. 1944 The Black Path of Fear
  14. 1944 Deadline at Dawn
  15. 1945 Night Has a Thousand Eyes
  16. 1947 Waltz Into Darkness
  17. 1948 Rendezvous in Black
  18. 1948 I Married a Dead Man
  19. 1950 Savage Bride
  20. 1950 Fright
  21. 1951 You'll Never See Me Again
  22. 1951 Strangler's Serenade
  23. 1952 Eyes That Watch You
  24. 1952 Bluebeard's Seventh Wife
  25. 1959 Death is My Dancing Partner
  26. 1960 The Doom Stone
  27. 1987 Into the Night
  28. 1943 I Wouldn't Be in Your Shoes
  29. 1944 After-Dinner Story
  30. 1946 If I Should Die Before I Wake
  31. 1946 Borrowed Crime
  32. 1946 The Dancing Detective
  33. 1948 Dead Man Blues
  34. 1949 The Blue Ribbon
  35. 1950 Somebody on the Phone
  36. 1950 Six Nights of Mystery
  37. 1956 Nightmare
  38. 1958 Violence
  39. 1958 Hotel Room
  40. 1959 Beyond the Night
  41. 1965 The Dark Side of Love
  42. 1965 The Ten Faces of Cornell Woolrich
  43. 1971 Nightwebs
  44. 1978 Angels of Darkness
  45. 1981 The Fantastic Stories of Cornell Woolrich
  46. 1983 Four by Cornell Woolrich
  47. 1984 Rear Window
  48. 1985 Vampire's Honeymoon
  49. 1985 Blind Date with Death
  50. 1985 Darkness at Dawn
  51. 1998 The Cornell Woolrich Omnibus
  52. 2003 Night and Fear
  53. 2005 Tonight, Somewhere in New York
  54. 2010 Four Novellas of Fear
  55. 2011 Love and Night
  56. 1934 Manhattan Love Song
  57. 1938 Convicted
  58. 1942 Street of Chance
  59. 1943 The Leopard Man
  60. 1944 Phantom Lady
  61. 1944 The Mark of the Whistler
  62. 1946 Deadline at Dawn
  63. 1946 Black Angel
  64. 1946 The Chase
  65. 1947 Fall Guy
  66. 1947 The Guilty
  67. 1947 Fear in the Night
  68. 1948 The Return of the Whistler
  69. 1948 I Wouldn't Be in Your Shoes
  70. 1948 Night Has a Thousand Eyes
  71. 1949 The Window
  72. 1950 No Man of Her Own
  73. 1951 The Earring
  74. 1952 The Trace of Some Lips
  75. 1952 If I Should Die Before I Wake
  76. 1952 Don't Ever Open That Door
  77. 1954 Rear Window
  78. 1954 Obsession
  79. 1956 The Glass Eye
  80. 1956 Nightmare
  81. 1957 Escapade
  82. 1964 Ah, Bomb!
  83. 1966 The Boy Cried Murder
  84. 1968 The Bride Wore Black
  85. 1969 Mississippi Mermaid
  86. 1970 Kati Patang
  87. 1972 Seven Blood-Stained Orchids
  88. 1973 You'll Never See Me Again
  89. 1974 Martha
  90. 1975 Gun Moll
  91. 1980 Union City
  92. 1983 I Married a Shadow
  93. 1984 Cloak & Dagger
  94. 1990 I'm Dangerous Tonight
  95. 1996 Mrs. Winterbourne
  96. 1998 Rear Window
  97. 2001 Original Sin
  98. 2006 Four O'Clock

Primary sources

Columbia College Today & other articles

Columbia College Today — vol. 9 (c. 1962), letter to the editor by James Warner Bellah '23
In the fall of 1922, a mysterious box on the front page of Spectator read 'Philolexian Society—J. W. Bellah '23, E. Finch '23, B. A. Simon '23, O. C. Walker '24, A. Baruth '25, J. C. Gephart '25, J. Philips '25, and L. D. Weaver '25.' We signed the society scroll, said to be a lineal descendant of an older literary society's scroll which is purported to hold the names of John Jay, Alexander Hamilton and Gouverneur Morris. In due course we were invested with our tiny Columbia-blue and gold crosses with the legend 'Surgam,' rendered loosely into English by Mr. Gephart as 'I am growing better and better every day in every way.'... We were all fiercely and practically literary like our favorite professors... Judson Philips '23 was publishing stark drama in magazines he hoped his mother wouldn't see. Cornell Woolrich '25 had topped that Irish fellow from Princeton by writing his…

Novelist (best known for Rear Window and other noir crime fiction). Bellah's CCT v.9 letter identifies him as a Philo contemporary: 'Cornell Woolrich '25 had topped that Irish fellow from Princeton by writing his undergraduate best-seller Cover Charge in his freshman year.' — a jab at F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Columbia College Today — vol. 9 (c. 1962), letter to the editor by James Warner Bellah '23 →

External references

Philolexians in his cohort

Community-maintained record

Spot an error or a missing citation?

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