The Bad Seed
  • Published: 15 February 2015
  • ISBN: 9781101872659
  • Imprint: Knopf US
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 224
  • RRP: $35.00

The Bad Seed

A Vintage Movie Classic

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Originally published in 1954, The Bad Seed is William March's bestselling classic that tells the chilling tale of a child serial killer. A VINTAGE MOVIE CLASSICS BOOK.

The bestselling novel that inspired Mervyn LeRoy’s classic horror film about the little girl who can get away with anything—even murder.
 
There’s something special about eight-year-old Rhoda Penmark. With her carefully plaited hair and her sweet cotton dresses, she’s the very picture of old-fashioned innocence. But when their neighborhood suffers a series of terrible accidents, her mother begins to wonder: Why do bad things seem to happen when little Rhoda is around?
 
Originally published in 1954, William March’s final novel was an instant bestseller and National Book Award finalist before it was adapted for the stage and made into a 1956 film. The Bad Seed is an indelible portrait of an evil that wears an innocent face, one which still resonates in popular culture today. 

With a new foreword by Anna Holmes.

Vintage Movie Classics spotlights classic films that have stood the test of time, now rediscovered through the publication of the novels on which they were based.
  • Published: 15 February 2015
  • ISBN: 9781101872659
  • Imprint: Knopf US
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 224
  • RRP: $35.00
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Praise for The Bad Seed

  • "William March knows where human fears and secrets are buried.... Nowhere is this gift better displayed than in The Bad Seed--the portrayal of a coldly evil, murderous child and what she does to both victims and family. In the author's hands this is adequate material for an absolutely first class novel of moral bewilderments and responsibilities nearest the heart of our decade." --The New York Times
  • "An impeccable tale of pure evil." --Atlantic Monthly
  • "Dark, original, ultimately appalling...a straightforward, technically accomplished story of suspense.... This is a novel bound to arouse strong responses, to generate vehement discussion, and so not easily to be forgotten." --New York Herald Tribune
  • "The Bad Seed is a novel of suspense and mounting horror, which the reader...will enjoy as the work of one of the most satisfying of American novelists." --Chicago Tribune