Buy Raymond Chandler Books Through My Amazon Links!
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RAYMOND CHANDLER
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Buy Raymond Chandler Books Through My Amazon Links!
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1988 saw the birth centenary of one of detective fiction's most famous exponents, Raymond Chandler. His crime-busting private eye, Philip Marlowe, a mediaeval knight-errant in 20th century clothing, has lost none of his mystique in over half a century. Marlowe, in fact, remains the most widely quoted, parodied and generally emulated sleuth of them all.
Raymond Chandler wrote only seven novels featuring his private detective, but Marlowe caught the public imagination right away - and remained there. To date there have been nine major feature films of the various novels, along with a number of TV adaptations - some conspicuously more successful than others. The same could be said for the portrayals of Marlowe himself, who has been taken on over the years by Dick Powell, George Montgomery, Robert Montgomery, Van Heflin, Gerald Mohr, Phil Carey, James Garner, Elliott Gould and Robert Mitchum - as well, of course, as the inimitable Humphrey Bogart; and although far removed from Raymond Chandler's physical description of Marlowe, his is probably the definitive portrait - so far.
But all Raymond Chandler fans must have their own inward picture of Marlowe, which they conjured up when they first opened "The Big Sleep"; and it is the books that concern us here. Detective fiction has always been a good collecting option, giving hours of reading pleasure and producing handsome and colourful collections of books that steadily appreciate in value, and chandler's are no exception. Coveted first editions of the novels are increasing in value all the time and the forties and Fifties-style pictorial dust-wrappers that adorn most of them are good examples of their kind.
Contrary to what new collectors might be led to expect, many of the UK titles, published by Hamish Hamilton, are very scarce indeed, especially with the dust-wrappers. We spoke to a number of dealers of long standing who had never seen the dust-wrappers for the UK editions of the first three novels, "The Big Sleep" (1939), "Farewell My Lovely" (1940), and "The High Window" (1943), but who were quite familiar with their American equivalents.
Most collectors, then, are quite content with copies in the original cloth-covered boards for at least the first three UK titles, though even in this format they are not cheap.
In Raymond Chandler's early years in England and America, he held a variety of jobs, including journalism, book-keeping and oil company directorships, before he began his hard-boiled career with the American pulp magazines. Raymond Chandler wrote for 'Black Mask' (his first story, "Blackmailers Don't Shoot", starring private eye Mallory, appeared there in December 1933); and to a lesser extent for 'Detective Fiction Weekly' and 'Dime Detective Monthly', turning out dozens of stories with different detective heroes, each displaying aspects of the Philip Marlowe-to-be.
Marlowe, of course, makes his debut in the novel "The Big Sleep", and it was as though all the pulp stories that had gone before were just rehearsals for the real thing. As envisaged by chandler, Marlowe - whose name had been developed from 'Mallory' - has, quite apart from his world-weariness, a plethora of knightly values. He has courage, physical strength, and a strong sense of justice. He is passionately ethical, incorruptible and indestructible. Add to this a "more than passably good-looking man" of just over six feet, with dark brown hair and eyes, who "could be tough but didn't look it", and you have the perfect crusader against crime.
The moment he walks through the door of the Sternwood mansion in "The Big Sleep" dressed in 'power blue suit, with dark shirt, tie and display handkerchief, black brogues, black wool socks with dark blue clocks on them.....", we know that here is a man who means business. He goes on to say: "I was neat, clean, shaved and sober, and I didn't care who knew it."
There is a stained glass panel above the door of the mansion, depicting a knight in armour rescuing a maiden tied to a tree, who us clad in "some very long and convenient hair". "I stood there and thought that if I lived in the house, I would sooner or later have to climb up there and help him. He didn't seem to be really trying."
Marlowe's visit to General Smallwood uncorks a tide of events leading to blackmail and murder, as he reveals an unsavoury "smut books" racket.
"The Big Sleep" was, to use Raymond Chandler's own expression, "cannibalised" from his short stories "Killer in the rain" and "The curtain", with fragments from two further stories. He completed it in three months and declared at once that he had no high pretensions about the book: "My story is just another detective yarn that happens to be more interested in people than in plot, to try to stand on it's own legs as a novel with the mystery a few drops of Tabasco on the oyster." Later he remarked, "I sure did run the similes into the ground" - an opinion echoed by some critics, but it still remained a very impressive first novel.
"The Big Sleep" was published by Knopf in America early in 1939, with UK publication from Hamish Hamilton later in the same year, embarking Raymond Chandler on a mutually agreeable lifelong relationship with that firm. Sales were remarkably high on both sides of the Atlantic for a first novel, although Raymond Chandler was always to have higher initial hardback sales in Britain than in America.
The Hamish Hamilton edition of "The Big Sleep" is very uncommon indeed, even without the dust-wrapper and in the original black cloth binding. The dust-wrapper - rarely seen - has a bright orange background with yellow lettering, and depicts a hand holding a brown gun with white smoke emitting from its muzzle.
Raymond Chandler now began to work concurrently on two novels, which were to be published eventually as "Farewell My Lovely" and "The Lady in the Lake". (He always chose his book titles very carefully: " A good title has magic", he said, "and magic to me is the most valuable ingredient in writing, and the rarest.") "Farewell My Lovely", the novel which sees Chandler at the height of his creative powers, was "Cannibalised" from "Try the Girl" and "Mandarin's Jade", short stories published in 'Black Mask' (Jan. 1937) and 'Dime Detective Magazine' (Nov. 1939) respectively.
In "Farewell My Lovely" we first feel the influence of the legendary "Bay City", based on Santa Monica, where Raymond Chandler lived for a short period while writing the original stories. Raymond Chandler used this imaginary suburb of L. A. - very respectable outwardly but riddled with corruption, and described so unforgettably in the novels - as a symbol of the hypocrisy he perceived in American society. But the serious message he was purveying is balanced by a pervasive, wise-cracking humour, which increasingly had the tendency to parody itself: "I am constantly tempted to burlesque the whole thing", Raymond Chandler remarked later in his career.
The British edition of "Farewell My Lovely" is again an uncommon volume. It was issued in smooth yellow cloth, and the dust-wrapper shows a drawing of a semi-recumbent couple on a sofa, the woman showing a generous amount of stocking top. There are a decanter and two glasses on a table in the foreground. "Farewell My Lovely", complete with the dust-jacket, is as scarce as its predecessor, and collectors wanting firsts are pleased enough to find copies in the yellow cloth.
Raymond Chandler was still working on "The Lady in the Lake" - reworked from his short stories "Bay City Blues" (1938) and "The Lady in the Lake" (1939) - which eventually took him four years to complete. But meanwhile he had started on "The High Window", a novel that took him half that time, possibly because he started this one from scratch, with completely fresh characters and situations. The finished first draft was called "The Brasher doubloon" - under which title it was filmed in 1947 - but it was initially rejected by his agent. After six months' revision, it was accepted and re-titled "The High Window."
The book was printed on coarse wartime paper and bound in reddish-orange cloth with the spine stamped in gold. The scarce dust-wrapper depicts a blonde in a tight blue dress (again stocking tops are very much in evidence), who appears to be kicking a revolver out of a man's hand, which is in the bottom right-hand corner. The background is yellow and the title, in white against a red panel, runs across the middle of the figure.
Although Raymond Chandler, in typical self-denigrating manner, spoke of this novel as having "no action, no likable characters, no nothing.....", it was a reasonable success and sold steadily. But "The Lady in the Lake", completed at last, had the best sales of any Raymond Chandler novel to date, in spite of the fact that it is not a typical Raymond Chandler tale in that the action takes place almost entirely in the countryside, far away from the sleaze of Bay City.
Issued in London by Hamish Hamilton in 1944 (after publication by Knopf in New York), "The Lady in the Lake" is another Raymond Chandler novel that does not turn up very often in the dust-wrapper, although it is much easier to find in this state than the previous three. Collectors should look out for copies in the purple dust-wrapper with pink lettering, showing a pictorial design of an elongated shadow falling upon a steep hill which is topped by a house. "The Lady in the Lake" was also printed on inferior wartime paper, and is a slim novel.
From this time onwards, UK editions become much easier to find - indeed Raymond Chandler's next novel, "The Little sister" (1949) was initially published in London, followed by US publication from Houghton Mifflin later that year. The British public and critics alike always had a higher regard for Raymond Chandler's work than his fellow Americans, and this is especially true of "The Little Sister", where UK reviews were much more enthusiastic. "In England I am an author. In the USA just a mystery writer. I can't tell why", Raymond Chandler wrote to Houghton Mifflin, his American publishers.
"The Little Sister " was written when Raymond Chandler was employed in Hollywood as a screenwriter. It was a period of his life that led to considerable disillusion, and the book is particularly memorable for its disenchanted depiction of the film capitol. Told through the story of Orfamy Quest. J.B. Priestley's comment on reading this book is an apt summing-up of chandler's achievement: "To read him is like cutting into an over-ripe melon, " he said, "and discovering that it has a rare astringent flavour. He reduces the bright Californian scene to an empty despair, dead bottle and a heap of cigarette butts under the meaningless neon lights."
The UK edition of "The Little Sister", the true first, has a dust-jacket in shades of brown with a picture of a young woman, wearing spectacles and a 'frumpy' suit, walking through the door of Marlowe's office. "The Little Sister" was filmed as "Marlowe" in 1969, starring James ('Rockford') Garner as a rugged Marlowe (and, interestingly, featuring some very impressive martial arts work by the then little-known Bruce Lee - BB)
The aptly-titled "The Long Goodbye" coincided with a difficult period in Raymond Chandler's life. Cissy, his wife, had become seriously ill, and he trusted no-one but himself to take care of her. He was also suffering badly from insomnia himself. And, although the cynicism still predominates, the book shows a maturer, more reflective Marlowe, a man who is not quite so averse to showing his feelings - and who breaks his hitherto inviolable code by becoming involved with two women.
In what many people believe to be Raymond Chandler's best book, Marlowe reveals previously hidden facets of his character, but ultimately he paints a pretty bleak picture of human nature, and of Southern California. Looking out of his apartment window over the city, Marlowe muses: "Twenty-four hours a day, someone is running, someone else is trying to catch him. Out there in the night of a thousand crimes people were dying, being maimed, being beaten, robbed, strangled, raped, murdered.....people were hungry, sick, bored, desperate, with loneliness, or remorse, or fear......A city no worse than others, a city rich and vigorous and full of pride, a city lost and beaten and full of emptiness."
"The Long Goodbye" was the second of Raymond Chandler's novels to be given first publication in the UK. Issued by Hamish Hamilton in 1953, this edition has a pictorial dust-wrapper by Fritz Wegner depicting a scene witnessed through an open door of the upper part of a woman's body lying supine on a bed. The picture is in tones of green, blue and brown with the title in lime green. In 1955 the book was awarded an Edgar by the Mystery Writers of America as best mystery novel of the year; and 1973 saw Robert Altman's evocotive and accomplished modern-day film version, starring Elliot Gould as Philip Marlowe.
Raymond Chandler's final novel, "Playback", was written after Cissy's death late in 1954. Raymond Chandler's depression and drink problems following his wife's death have been recorded elsewhere,, but they were very severe and it was only after several prolonged stays in hospitals and rest homes that chandler managed, in 1957, to finish the book. "Playback" was in fact a book version of what had begun as a screenplay many years before.
"Playback" was published in 1958 by Hamish Hamilton, with a jacket design in black with red and white lettering, and was issued with two different bindings. The volume which has lettering in yellow is believed to be the first issue, while the variant is lettered in gilt.
A recent (1985) publication from Harrap offers the original screenplay, generally held to be far superior to the book, under the title "Raymond Chandler's unknown Thriller: The Screenplay of 'Playback' " which, in its black dust-jacket with yellow lettering and picture, can be picked up quite cheaply.
Raymond Chandler died on March 26th 1959, some four years after Cissy. He had started work on another novel, the opening chapters of which were discovered among his papers after his death. The fragment, sadly not up to his usual standard, was eventually published as "The Poodle Springs Story" in the volume "Raymond Chandler Speaking" (published by both Hamish Hamilton and Houghton Mifflin in 1962), a miscellany that also contains letters and essays by Raymond Chandler. There was also a paperback edition from Alison & Busby in 1984.
Several volumes of short stories were published during Raymond Chandler's lifetime. The first of these, "The Simple Art of Murder" (Hamish Hamilton, 1950), is a particularly collectable volume. The dust-wrapper has an attractive Fifties cover design by 'CWB', who provided the illustrated jacket for "The Little Sister". Besides a collection of short stories, the book contains the well-known essay that gives the volume its name, and which was originally published in 'Atlantic Monthly' in December 1944. Collectors should note that the UK edition of the book contains fewer stories than the preceding US version (Houghton Mifflin, 1950).
A complete set of Raymond Chandler's UK publications must contain three further short story collections. First to appear was the paperback "Trouble is my business" from Penguin in 1950, which contains the title story plus "Red Wind", "I'll Be Waiting, "Goldfish" and "Guns at Cyranos".
"Pearls Are A Nuisance", another softback which followed from Hamish Hamilton in 1953, contains, besides the title story and an introduction, two further tales, "Finger Man" and "The King in Yellow", and a reprint of the essay "The Simple Art of Murder". This volume, issued in wrappers, is very difficult to find today. It was reprinted in hard-back form in 1958, and reissued two years later by Penguin.
"Smart-Aleck Kill" (Hamish Hamilton, 1953) was also issued in wrappers in the same years as "Pearls". This is a much more common book than its companion volume, containing four stories: "Smart-Aleck Kill", "Pick-Up On Noon Street", "Nevada Gas" and "Spanish Blood". It was given hardback publication in 1958, followed by Penguin paperback issue in 1964.
1953 also saw the appearance of the first "Raymond Chandler Omnibus", a value-for-money volume that contains four compete novels, "The Big Sleep", "Farewell My Lovely", "The High Window" and "The Lady in the Lake". "The Second Raymond Chandler Omnibus" (1962) contains the final three novels plus the ubiquitous essay, "The Simple Art of Murder".
Two further story collections were published posthumously in the early 1960s, "Killer in the Rain" (1964) has an introduction by Philip Durham, author of the Raymond Chandler critique "Down These Mean Streets A Man Must Go" (University of North Carolina Press, 1963), and contains eight stories first published in the pulps, notably 'Black Mask'.
"The Smell of Fear" (1965) is a bumper volume of fourteen Raymond Chandler stories. In the Introduction, chandler tries to pin down the appeal of the hard-boiled genre. He didn't think it was just a matter of the violence, although "far too many people got killed in these stories, and their passing was celebrated with a rather too loving attention to detail"" and it certainly wasn't'' the fine writing, since ""any attempt at that would have been ruthlessly blue-penciled by the editorial staff." Neither was it, he goes on to say, the originality of the plot: "Most of the plots were rather ordinary, and most of the characters rather ordinary types of people." Rather, he thought, it was "the smell of fear" the stories managed to generate.
The volume has a dust-jacket design in red, black and brown by P. Youngman Carter, husband of Margery Allingham and the designer of many of her first edition covers.
Raymond Chandler's most successful piece of screenwriting, for which he received an Academy nomination, was "The Blue Dahlia" - originally conceived of as a novel - which was released as a film in 1946, with Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake. The screenplay was published by Elm Tree Books (part of Hamish Hamilton) in 1976, titles "The Blue Dahlia - A Screenplay". This excellent piece of work is an essential part of any Raymond Chandler collection.
For collectors on a tight budget, there are many later editions of all the novels. The early editions had a standard yellow dust-jacket with a black gun. Later on came the photographic covers, when the books were reissued by Hamish Hamilton as part of their 'fingerprint' crime series, and all these later editions can be picked up quite cheaply to form a basic collection.
Chandler completists will also want to include several other posthumous works - for instance "The Notebooks of Raymond Chandler" (Cape, 1981). And, besides the excellent Frank MacShane biography (Cape, 1976), they may also like to add a fascinating book about Raymond Chandler, "The World of Raymond chandler" (Weidenfield, 1977), which has contributions from, among others, Russell Davies, Clive James, Dilys Powell, Natasha Spender and Billy Wilder. They each supply anecdotes and their own personal view of an enigmatic man who seems to have aroused exasperation and affection in equal measure.
But perhaps only a complex man could have created Philip Marlowe, the laconic cynic with a nice line in wisecracks and an uncompromising sense of right and wrong. He has already survived the Bond-obsessed Sixties and Seventies, and he has markedly survived the Ramboesque excesses of the Eighties.
To mark the centenary of Raymond Chandler's birth, Hamish Hamilton issued an attractive new edition of the novels and short stories, with dust-jacket illustrations by Mark Thomas. He is the artist who designed the credits for Dennis Potter's award-winning TV series, "The Singing Detective", which was in itself a fitting tribute to Raymond Chandler, Philip Marlowe, and the values for which they stood.
UK BIOGRAPHY
Novels
The Big Sleep
Farewell My Lovely
The High Window
The Lady in the Lake
The Little Sister
The Long Goodbye
Playback
Short Story Collections
The Simple Art of Murder
Trouble is my Business
Pearls Are A Nuisance
Smart-Aleck Kill
Killer in the Rain
The Smell of Fear
Omnibus Volumes
The Raymond Chandler Omnibus
The Second Raymond Chandler Omnibus
Miscellaneous
Raymond Chandler Speaking
The Blue Dahlia - A Screenplay
The Notebooks of Raymond Chandler
The Selected Letters of Raymond Chandler
Raymond Chandler's Unknown Thriller: The Screenplay of Playback
A brief word on how this works. If you click on any of the links below, you'll be taken to the page at Amazon where you can buy the book. Because you've linked to there from my site, I get commission on the sale. It's not a lot, but it helps to keep this and my other sites afloat.
TALKING BOOKS
Where can you get all those old, out of print books? Here!
And if you fancy searching Amazon.com for any ol' li'l thang at all....why not go direct from here!
Or if you prefer Amazon.co.uk
The above was loosely adapted (other than my deleting the odd outdated piece or adding a contemporary comment, it's original) from an article authored by one Helen Macleod in Book and Magazine Collector Magazine, issue 53 of August 1988.
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Parthenon/3224/
http://members.aol.com/chandlerla/
http://members.aol.com/MG4273/chandler.htm
http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/~gnik/crime-fiction/chandler/chandler.html
http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/rchandle.htm
http://www.america.net/~davdmock/chandler.htm
http://www.conjunctions.com/archives/c29-ps.htm
http://www.miskatonic.org/rara-avis/authors/chandler/
http://www.thrillingdetective.com/trivia/chandler.html
http://www.vintagelibrary.com/books/chand/bio.htm
http://www.hycyber.com/MYST/chandler_raymond.html
http://www.bookreporter.com/authors/au-chandler-raymond.asp
http://www.ghg.net/wbmiller3/rc.htm
http://www.genordell.com/stores/blackhat/Chandler.htm
http://www.miskatonic.org/rara-avis/biblio/chandler.html
http://www.hifibliss.com/peter/chandler.htm
http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/~gnik/crime-fiction/chandler/chandler-biography.html
http://www.conservativebookstore.com/fchandler.shtml
http://www.memorablequotations.com/chandler.htm
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