From 1934 until his death in 1968, Cor­nell Woolrich wrote dozens of "tales of love and despair" that chill the heart and display his mastery of the genre he all but created. In a title for a story he never wrote, he captured the essence of his tortured world: "First you dream, then you die."   Introducing these 13 tales, Nevins de­scribes the dark world Woolrich so viv­idly creates. "The dominant reality in his world is the Depression, and Woolrich has no peers when it comes to describing a frightened little guy in a tiny apartment with no money, no job, a hun­gry wife and children, and anxiety eating him like a cancer. If a Woolrich protago­nist is in love, the beloved is likely to vanish in such a way that he not only can't find her but can't convince anyone she ever existed."