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Raymond Chandler

Raymond Chandler: Stories and Early Novels: Pulp Stories / The Big Sleep / Farewell, My Lovely / The High Window (Library of America) Hardcover – October 1, 1995

by Raymond Chandler (Author), Frank MacShane (Editor)

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In Raymond Chandler’s hands, the pulp crime story became a haunting mystery of power and corruption, set against a modern cityscape both lyrical and violent. Now Chandler joins the authoritative Library of America series in a comprehensive two-volume set displaying all the facets of his brilliant talent.

In his first novel, The Big Sleep (1939), the classic private eye finds his full-fledged form as Philip Marlowe: at once tough, independent, brash, disillusioned, and sensitive—and man of weary honor threading his way (in Chandler’s phrase) “down these mean streets” among blackmailers, pornographers, and murderers for hire.

In Farewell, My Lovely (1940), Chandler’s personal favorite among his novels, Marlowe’s search for a missing woman leads him from shanties and honky-tonks to the highest reaches of power, encountering an array of richly drawn characters. The High Window (1942), about a rare coin that becomes a catalyst by which a hushed-up crime comes back to haunt a wealthy family, is partly a humorous burlesque of pulp fiction. All three novels show Chandler at a peak of verbal inventiveness and storytelling drive

Stories and Early Novels also includes every classic noir story from the 1930s that Chandler did not later incorporate into a novel—thirteen in all, among them such classics as “Red Wind,” “Finger Man,” The King in Yellow," and “Trouble Is My Business.” Drawn from the pages of Black Mask and Dime Detective, these stories show how Chandler adapted the violent conventions of the pulp magazine—with their brisk exposition and rapid-fire dialogue—to his own emerging vision of twentieth-century America.

LIBRARY OF AMERICA is an independent nonprofit cultural organization founded in 1979 to preserve our nation’s literary heritage by publishing, and keeping permanently in print, America’s best and most significant writing. The Library of America series includes more than 300 volumes to date, authoritative editions that average 1,000 pages in length, feature cloth covers, sewn bindings, and ribbon markers, and are printed on premium acid-free paper that will last for centuries.

Print length

1216 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Library of America
Publication date

October 1, 1995
Reading age

18 years and up
Dimensions

5.26 x 1.46 x 8.14 inches
ISBN-10

1883011078
ISBN-13

978-1883011079
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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

If you're looking for the perfect gift for yourself or some other lover of mysteries, this beautifully-made volume from the Library of America series will definitely prove that you care enough to send the very best. And if you haven't picked up The Big Sleep, Farewell, My Lovely, or The High Window recently, you'll be amazed at how well they stand up to the test of time. (A second handsome volume, Later Novels & Other Writings -- including The Long Goodbye -- is also available.)

From Library Journal

These additions to the venerable series make official what mystery fans have always known: Raymond Chandler is one of the gods of American literature. Following the trail blazed by Dashiell Hammett, Chandler created Philip Marlowe and set the standard against which all private detective fiction is measured. This two-volume set covers the full canon of Chandler's work from early pulp stories to all the Marlowe novels, the screenplay for Double Indemnity, and essays on the mystery genre plus the usual Library of America goodies such as notes on the text and a chronology of the author's life. In terms of literary inventions, the Wild West cowboy and the hard-boiled P.I. are this country's only true native sons and are deserving of respect. One of them at least now has it.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Library of America (October 1, 1995)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 1216 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1883011078
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1883011079
Reading age ‏ : ‎ 18 years and up
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.68 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.26 x 1.46 x 8.14 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #132,677 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #485 in Mystery Anthologies (Books)
- #1,239 in Hard-Boiled Mystery
- #1,907 in Short Stories Anthologies

Customer Reviews:
91 ratings

About the author

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Raymond Chandler

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Raymond Thornton Chandler (July 23, 1888 – March 26, 1959) was a British-American novelist and screenwriter. In 1932, at age forty-four, Chandler decided to become a detective fiction writer after losing his job as an oil company executive during the Great Depression. His first short story, "Blackmailers Don't Shoot", was published in 1933 in Black Mask, a popular pulp magazine. His first novel, The Big Sleep, was published in 1939. In addition to his short stories, Chandler published seven novels during his lifetime (an eighth, in progress at the time of his death, was completed by Robert B. Parker). All but Playback have been made into motion pictures, some several times. In the year before he died, he was elected president of the Mystery Writers of America. He died on March 26, 1959, in La Jolla, California.

Chandler had an immense stylistic influence on American popular literature. He is considered by many to be a founder, along with Dashiell Hammett, James M. Cain and other Black Mask writers, of the hard-boiled school of detective fiction. His protagonist, Philip Marlowe, along with Hammett's Sam Spade, is considered by some to be synonymous with "private detective," both having been played on screen by Humphrey Bogart, whom many considered to be the quintessential Marlowe.

Some of Chandler's novels are considered important literary works, and three are often considered masterpieces: Farewell, My Lovely (1940), The Little Sister (1949), and The Long Goodbye (1953). The Long Goodbye was praised in an anthology of American crime stories as "arguably the first book since Hammett's The Glass Key, published more than twenty years earlier, to qualify as a serious and significant mainstream novel that just happened to possess elements of mystery".

Bio from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

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The Huntington Book Depository

Chandler is an absolute master of crime writing - love the Library of America editions

Reviewed in the United States on June 19, 2020

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I'm a huge fan of the Library of America series. They're handsome on the shelf, they're durable hardcover editions, they font and feel of the pages are wonderful, you get three novels and some collected shorter pieces in one volume (great for trips), and they come with an interesting biographical timeline of the author so you can see their life story and how the work was influenced by their experiences. If you're browsing this particular edition here on Amazon, then you've got great taste and you're looking for something special.

I can't say enough about how good Raymond Chandler is. If you like crime fiction, you've probably read hundreds of Chandler knockoffs without knowing it and will be amazed when you read the original master of the art. Here you get a nice introduction to his style as he refined it through his pulp stories (some of which you'll enjoy better than others), but by the time you get to the novels you'll get to see the refined product and will be blown away. I'm not going to summarize the stories or the characters in this review, best you find them on your own!

If you like these, I'd also recommend you get the Dashiell Hammett books - also by Library of America. Right up there with Chandler.

2 people found this helpful

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Angry Mofo

A rough beginning leads to great depth.

Reviewed in the United States on December 29, 2012

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Chandler was a brilliant writer and an American genius, every bit as important as Hemingway . But he wasn't very good as a mystery writer. He was honest about it, too, saying that he was more interested in atmosphere than logical deduction.

It certainly shows in this collection. Chandler came to detective novels through the format of pulp fiction, which focused on violence and titillation rather than logic. Pulp writers wrote thrillers and action stories more than mysteries. Chandler did the same. To be honest, most of his early short stories are unreadable, and his one later story "The Pencil" doesn't even make it into the volume. Stuff like "Blackmailers Don't Shoot" adheres to tough-guy posturing and mannerisms on every page, but it's impossible to figure out who is blackmailing whom, and why, and also why these thugs are shooting those thugs. Of the whole lot, only "Pearls Are A Nuisance" turns out to be a sort of gem, mostly because it is a screwball comedy written in a ridiculously pedantic tone, very out of character. But you can't make a career writing stuff like that.

We all know that this humble start eventually led to a huge success. However, revisiting The Big Sleep, it is surprising just how much it is indebted to the early work, and just how much it continues in the vein of the pulps. The rapidly accumulating murders are impenetrable; Chandler famously stated that he had no idea who killed the driver. (It seemed to me that it was an accident, but if so, it was a very improbable one.) Also reflecting Chandler's rough beginnings, this first Philip Marlowe novel is the only one where Marlowe kills a criminal.

But at the same time, you can also see that something else is emerging. The ending of The Big Sleep is a stunning flash that instantaneously solves the main mystery, even if it does mean that all the sideplots fall by the wayside. It also introduces Marlowe as a unique character in American fiction. Tough guys who fight crime for great justice were nothing new in the 1930s, much less now. But Marlowe's concept of justice appears to be motivated by some instinctive sixth sense of honour, combined with a profound visceral disgust for criminals. Chandler understood that a little principle goes a long way -- Marlowe does not deliver long speeches or action-hero wisecracks, and often Chandler focuses so much on the routine details of the investigation (as well as Marlowe's whiskey-drinking) that it's impossible to tell exactly what the detective is thinking about everything. But in the ending, you see that he never forgot about principle, and that he understood the people he was dealing with long ago. His solution of the case is not based on any particular clue as much as on his instinctive perception of Carmen's character.

That's not exactly detective fiction, but it is phenomenal drama. Chandler was a natural fit for Hollywood (where he wrote at least one classic screenplay), and yet no director or actor ever got Marlowe. Hawks has Bogart smirk too much and talk too fast, and Altman is clueless about Marlowe's motivation. The best Marlowe was Mitchum .

But back to the collection. Chandler's second novel was Farewell, My Lovely, which surpasses The Big Sleep as much as the latter surpassed the short stories. It introduces Chandler's lyricism. Marlowe's disgust for criminals is blended with self-criticism (in a mordantly funny inner monologue when he attempts to obtain information from a key witness by plying her with gin), loneliness, and a kind of detached sorrow. The book is still full of disconnected incidents (the entire trip to Amthor turns out to be a pointless digression -- actually the movie with Mitchum improved on this part), but there are also actual clues, such as a business card that the reader is unlikely to notice in time. In any case, the digressions don't matter as much, as the book is full of vivid supporting characters...or, rather, the most generic supporting characters become vivid through Chandler's ornate, stylized dialogue, full of evasions and double meanings. A routine investigation scene, taking place in the hotel across from the bar where the book begins, is full of rich, quotable dialogue. The token cop character, omnipresent in detective fiction, splits into the lazy, jaded Nulty, desensitized by routine and unrewarding investigations, and the scarily professional detective Randall, every bit as sharp as Marlowe (and maybe more), but constrained by the law as well as by extra-legal politics.

Chandler's third novel The High Window is probably the best detective story in this book. It is an extremely enjoyable read, and the investigation is more streamlined, and makes more sense, than in the first two books. Pleasantly, the token cop character this time around turns out to be a very reasonable man who tries to work together with Marlowe, a welcome change from the stereotype. The book generally has all the same elements as the others, with an unexpected twist and a somewhat more uplifting ending than usual, even if it doesn't cut quite as deep, and the endlessly masochistic Merle is neither interesting nor sympathetic enough to make a good emotional lynchpin. Still, as far as entertainment value is concerned, it delivers fully.

This collection offers a lot of lasting value, and it's not even Chandler's best. That came later , with The Lady In The Lake, The Little Sister, and The Long Goodbye. He never quite became a mystery writer, but his contemplation of loss, isolation, and loyalty deepened, and his evocative, yet simple language and metaphors are just about unmatched in American literature.

13 people found this helpful

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Georgia Burns

New Chandler fan

Reviewed in the United States on May 21, 2011

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As a reader of classical fiction along the lines of Trollope and Bronte, I assumed Raymond Chandler would have little to offer me. But after hearing Toby Stephens' brilliant portrayal of his iconic Philip Marlowe on British radio I became intrigued. This volume is part of a set of two with all of Chandler's stories except Poodle Springs, his last, finished by Robert B. Parker. I began with the famous novels Farewell My Lovely and The Big Sleep. The writing was like nothing I was familiar with. Rather than be turned off by the slang of the underclass of the Depression Era '30's, I was drawn into a world totally realized and fascinating. The character of Marlowe is a miracle of cynicism and chivalry. The mystery in each novel is almost beside the point. It's Marlowe with his world-weary charm and wise-cracking persona that kept me enthralled. I then enjoyed reading Chandler's earlier stories for the pulp fiction magazines watching the evolution of his talent and spying glimpses of the Marlowe-to-be. Put your prejudices aside and prepare for artistry of a totally different kind. Classic Chandler: Farewell My Lovely Raymond Chandler: Later Novels and Other Writings: The Lady in the Lake / The Little Sister / The Long Goodbye / Playback /Double Indemnity / Selected Essays and Letters (Library of America)Classic Chandler: Playback

10 people found this helpful

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DMM

Riveting stories by great writer !

Reviewed in the United States on July 17, 2021

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I've wanted to read Raymond Chandler for a wrong time and never before came across the right volume of stories.
This book was delivered on perfect condition and ahead of schedule .

I've been reading the stories non-stop since receiving the book.

VENDOR WAS TERRIFIC - GREAT SUPPORT !

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NPHighView

Great writing; poor print

Reviewed in the United States on August 9, 2021

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Chandler is the exemplar of Noir writing, and these books have his best. Unfortunately the binding and paper are incredibly flimsy.

Reviewed in the United States on September 23, 2020

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The Library of America volumes are quality. I’ve only read “The Big Sleep” and it proved to be a classic of the genre.

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Amazon Customer

Very good, in spite of Chandler being a cat fancier

Reviewed in the United States on June 27, 2019

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Love "Red Wind," his twist on Maugham's "Mr. Know-All."

Reviewed in the United States on September 9, 2019

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This volume has some of Chandler's best. I had to return the first copy, because pages were missing: the end of Farewell....and the beginning of The High Window.

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