Here's a fairly authoritative-sounding account from
http://www.educeth.ch/english/readinglist/cainj/postman.html
"A Note on the Title of James M. Cain's Novel
'The Postman Always Rings Twice' In "Murder on the Love
Rack," the tenth chapter of CAIN: The Biography of James M.
Cain (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1982), Roy Hoopes
details the history of Cain's famously enigmatic title for
his first novel. According to Hoopes, Cain originally titled
the work Bar-B-Que, but the publisher Alfred Knopf who was
considering publishing the novel objected to the title and
suggested For Love or Money instead. Cain hated Knopf's title
because he found it generic, the sort of title that seems
designed to market any sensationalistic book or movie. In
return, Cain offered to call the book Black Puma or The
Devil's Checkbook, but Knopf rejected these as well. Hoopes
reports that finally, during a conversation with the
playwright and screenwriter Vincent Lawrence--Cain's best
friend in Hollywood, and the person to whom he ultimately
dedicated this novel--came up with the title The Postman
Always Rings Twice. The two writers had been commiserating
over the agonies of waiting for the postman each day to find
out the latest news on their submitted manuscripts. Lawrence
said that he would sometimes go out into his backyard to
avoid hearing the postman come but complained that the
postman always rang twice to make sure he was heard. This
anecdote put Cain in mind of an old English and Irish
tradition according to which the postman always rang (or
knocked) twice to announce himself. Cain pitched the title to
his friend and Lawrence agreed that this metaphor was well
suited as a description for the fate of Frank Chambers.
Knopf, of course, accepted the title, and Hoopes notes that
this title, with its rather obscure meaning, may in fact have
contributed to the controversy that fueled the novel's huge
success. J.C. Caruso University of Washington"
===== David Wright Seattle Public Library
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