The Oldest Confession

The Oldest Confession, published by Appleton-Century-Crofts in 1958, is the first novel of the American political novelist Richard Condon. Even before it was published in April of that year, twelve film companies had initiated talks about purchasing rights to it, a very unusual amount of interest for an unpublished first novel. The forthcoming book, "Condon explained without divulging details of the plot, 'Is one of need. Half the need, love. The other half, greed.'" The movie version was released in 1962 as The Happy Thieves, starring Rex Harrison and Rita Hayworth, and was dismissed by The New York Times as a "limp herring" of "the devastating first novel."