Product Description
Raymond Chandler’s first three novels, published here in one volume, established his reputation as an unsurpassed master of hard-boiled detective fiction. THE BIG SLEEP, Chandler's first novel, introduces Philip Marlowe, a private detective inhabiting the seamy side of Los Angeles in the 1930s, as he takes on a case involving a paralyzed California millionaire, two psychotic daughters, blackmail, and murder. In FAREWELL, MY LOVELY, Marlowe deals with the gambling circuit, a murder he stumbles upon, and three very beautiful but potentially deadly women. In THE HIGH WINDOW, Marlowe searches the California underworld for a priceless gold coin and finds himself deep in the tangled affairs of a dead coin collector.

In all three novels, Chandler’s hard-edged prose, colorful characters, vivid vernacular, and above all his enigmatic loner of a hero, enduringly establish his claim not only to the heights of his chosen genre but to the pantheon of literary art. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

Chandler is the man
All the stories are packed with action and very engaging. Of all the three novels, Chandler is at his best in Farewell, My Lovely with his concise, imaginative descriptions and metaphors that kept me amazed throughout.

The Big Sleep is a solid novel with a good story rendered in unique prose. The High Window definitely drops in quality in my opinion, but still delivers a highly entertaining story.

After reading these novels, I have little choice but to read the rest of his oeuvre to see if he attains the quality of writing he does in his second novel.

A fine collection of some of the greatest hardboiled fiction ever published
I recently decided to reread all of Raymond Chandler as part of a reading project I have undertaken on American hardboiled fiction and the development of film noir.I didn't care for the very old and rather battered mass market editions that I owned.I had intended to get all of Chandler in the Library of America editions, but the second I realized I could get the same thing in Everyman editions I instantly changed my mind.Although the LOA edition includes Chandler's film scripts as well, I prefer the Everyman in every other way.In fact, the current generation of Everyman editions is hands down my favorite editions of any books.Whenever I want to read or reread a classic, I always check to see if there is an Everyman edition.For instance, when I reread Margaret Atwood's THE HANDMAID'S TALE, I was delighted to see that it was available in and Everyman edition and so I upgraded from my old mass market copy.The only recent exception to this was when I came to Dashiell Hammett.In order to do justice to his stories I've had to get a mixture of editions, primarily because the Library of America left so many stories out of their collection of his crime stories.And while Everyman has a beautiful edition of THE WEALTH OF NATIONS by Adam Smith, the right wing propaganda publisher Liberty Books (the publishing wing of the Heritage Foundation) publishes an amazingly inexpensive reprint of the Glasgow Edition (the major academic edition of Smith's works), originally published by Oxford University Press.

The Everyman editions are everything books should be.They are bound in cloth.They are sewn in signatures.The paper is an acid-free cream-colored paper that is nonreflective and featuring a beautiful font.The volumes are inviting and marvelous to hold.And I love the page size.Each book is approximately the size of a trade paperback.It is as if the publisher sat down to design the perfect book.Whether that was their intent, it was the result.

This volume contains a wonderful introductory essay by Diane Johnson along with the first three novels that Raymond Chandler wrote.Of the great writers, Chandler got possibly the latest start.He was in his mid-forties when he first started writing for publication and fifty when THE BIG SLEEP was released.In one way he did nothing that had not already been done by Dashiell Hammett, but there is no question he put his own indelible stamp on the hardboiled genre.The difference between what Chandler and Hammett were doing and what, say, Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers and other drawing room detective novelists were doing was vast.The whole point of a Christie or Sayers novel was the solving of the mystery.The story was built around a puzzle.For Chandler, on the other hand, the story was almost an afterthought, almost a triviality.He seems to have expended very little thought on his plots.Instead, he focused all of his energies on character, narrative, and dialogue.Has any writer every written so many great metaphors or similes?"He looked about as inconspicuous as a tarantula on a slice of angel food."His books (and stories) contain dozens if not hundreds of similar lines.He is almost unquestionably the most imitated writer in history, as scores of other writers have either emulated or parodied his prose style.

Although he published THE BIG SLEEP at age 50, it bears none of the marks of a neophyte writer.It does have a cynical world weariness that was not at odds with Chandler's own worldview.Philip Marlowe is a knight errant, but a battered one.In one of Chandler's greatest short stories, "Red Wind," Marlowe is hired to find a stolen set of pearl's that a woman was given by her one true love, a man who had died before they could be married.Marlow recovers the pearls, only to realize that they were fake.Knowing that they will be examined closely upon their return and revealed (and their giver along with them) as fakes, he has some poor fakes made instead.He then tells his client that the pearls had already been sold and presents her with the fakes in their stead.He thereby protects the woman's life sustaining delusion that she had once been loved by a truly good man.The story ends with Marlowe sitting on a rock in Malibu tossing the pearls one by one into the Pacific.Marlowe knows have nasty the world can be, but he is determined to protect the few good and comforting things that he can.

This volume collects Chandler's first three novels.The first two are among his greatest.The third, THE HIGH WINDOW, is very readable and fun, but many of the plot devices are atrocious, such as the outrageous conceit that a near unknown would give Marlowe his apartment key so that he could later get into his apartment and discover his dead body.And there is a far-fetched gun switching device that indicates that Chandler simply couldn't be bothered to improve upon.But THE BIG SLEEP and FAREWELL, MY LOVELY are both wonderful novels, full of wonderfully savage prose, demented characters, and descriptions of a Los Angeles that helped give birth and form to countless film noirs.

Thanks to Everyman, it is very simple to collect all the Raymond Chandler you'd ever want to own.There is a second collection of novels, which includes THE LADY IN THE LAKE, THE LITTLE SISTER, THE LONG GOODBYE, and PLAYBACK (the latter the lone truly bad Philip Marlowe novel, written near the end of Chandler's life and following the death of his beloved wife).And THE COLLECTED STORIES brings together the truly remarkable group of tales that Chandler wrote, most before publishing THE BIG SLEEP, many featuring Philip Marlowe.I strongly recommend all of them.Along with Dashiell Hammett (collecting whose major work is a far more complex affair) and Ross MacDonald, this is the very heart of American hardboiled fiction.

chester blasczak review of The Big Sleep-Everymans library
Having seen The Big Sleep filmmany times..my favorite Humphrey Bogart movie, I thought it might be fun to read the novel by Raymond Chandler. I am so glad I did. Not only was it an enjoyable page turner, but it filled in some of the questions I have always had about the movie plot.
Chandler is an amazing author, And Phillip Marlowe is an awesome character. Highly recommend to anyone who enjoys reading a novel with lots of excitement and surprises.
ps: The Everyman's Library series is outstanding in quality, and given Amazons generous discount, a real value.

Get it. Get this edition.
Not whether to get it -- for you must -- but which edition to get it in -- that is the question. And the Everyman's edition is the edition you want. It has three novels to Modern Library's two, and its paper is thicker than that of the Library of America edition. The font is a tad smaller than that in the Vintage Crime paperback editions, but still pleasantly readable. And the hardcover binding is a sturdy, beautiful and very strokable red cloth.

As for the novels themselves, well, suffice to say, they are classics: addictive, page-turning, vivid, funny, haunting. The characters are original and believable. All rendered in tight prose and witty, convincing dialogues.

Enjoy.

As Hard-boiled as it gets....
"It was about eleven o'clock in the morning, mid October, with the sun not shining and a look of hard wet rain in the clearness of the foothills. I was wearing my powder-blue suit, with dark blue shirt, tie and display handkerchief, black brogues, black wool socks with dark blue clocks on them. I was neat, clean, shaved and sober, and I didn't care who knew it. I was everything the well-dressed private detective ought to be. I was calling on four million dollars."

- Philip Marlowe in The Big Sleep

And thus began the criteria for what a private eye would look like and what his moral code would be. Raymond Chandler, author of the Philip Marlowe series of crime novels, set the bar high and generations would follow in his writing footsteps.

Raymond Chandler is considered to be one of the most influential writers of crime fiction and his phenomenal creation of the detective Philip Marlowe has survived decades.

Every time a modern reader discovers a new private eye who is facing some interesting and very tough times but is able to do it with integrity and a strict moral code alongwith a "soldier's eye"; you are meeting Raymond Chandler the writer all over again. And Philip Marlowe his creation is playing a pivotal role in the background.

Raymond Chandler wrote seven detective novels but THE BIG SLEEP is probably his best out of the three in this edition. He was in his fifties when he wrote these novels; yet the first novel cited: THE BIG SLEEP would become an American landmark in the hard-boiled detective genre and would really launch Chandler into the icon that he is today.

The reader will discover unified themes with strong and fully developed characters with incredible imagery and metaphors. Chandler's literary style is distinctive and very crisp. You will love his writing and it brings back nostalgia for a time long past. If you are new to hard-boiled detective stories, this is the series that I would start with

In the first novel THE BIG SLEEP you will be introduced to the Sternwoods: General Sternwood, Vivian and Carmen and all three are interesting studies and all three as General Sternwood notes hasn't "any more moral sense than a cat." General Sternwood is on his deathbed and hired Philip Marlowe to check out why he was being blackmailed by one Arthur Gwynn Geiger. His two daughters, Vivian and Carmen, are quite a handful but General Sternwood feels in part responsible for his plight. As he tells Marlow, "I need not add that a man who indulges in parenthood for the first time at the age of fifty-four deserves all he gets." He describes his two daughters as being "spoiled, exacting, smart and ruthless with the younger girl as being the type who likes to pull wings off flies".

Chandler's novels do highlight crooks and morally-corrupt characters and derelicts, but they are counter-balanced by Marlowe, Bernie Ohls, and General Sternwood--all of whom possess a strong sense of honor, a consideration of what is proper and are for the most part trying to live a life above board.

There are numerous murders that take place in all three of these detective Marlowe novels and a tight interwoven plot which will keep you on the edge of your seat until you get to the last page.

Just as an interesting sideline, when THE BIG SLEEP (the first of Chandler's novels) was published in 1939 there was only an advance of 5,000 copies by Alfred A. Knopf. However, Knopf knew the power and the contribution that this novel would make. They actually took out an advertisement for this book on the front cover of the Publisher's Weekly which was most unusual for a novelist's first book.

The dust jacket flaps read:

"Not since Dashiell Hammett appeared has there been a murder mystery story with the power, pace, and terrifying atmosphere of this one. And like Hammett's this is more than a "murder mystery": it is a novel of crime and character, written with uncommon skill in a tight, tense style which is irresistible."

And so it was. I would highly recommend reading these crime novels and being introduced to Philip Marlowe. THE BIG SLEEP was made into a movie starring Bogart and Bacall with the screen play being written by William Faulkner no less.

Don't miss these novels. I almost did.

Note: This Everyman's Library is a great buy. It is a hardcover and for $18.15 with some offerings of $14.95, the buyer can get three (3) Chandler novels.The paperback for THE BIG SLEEP alone is $10.36!

Rating: A

Bentley/October 2007







The Big Sleep; Farewell, My Lovely; The High Window (Everyman's Library) ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A glimpse inside the sausage factory
THE BLUE DAHLIA offers a rare early glimpse into the sausage-making machinery of 1940s Hollywood.

First and foremost, it's a cracking good read.A Chandler original, it's the only one of his original scripts that he never adapted into prose (unlike PLAYBACK, which also exists as a novel) -- so this is the only place you can read this story, rather than watch it.And, other than PLAYBACK, it's the only Chandler script that wasn't based on someone else's material.If for no other reason, it's fascinating to read to see how the legendary writer's brusque, bruised prose style translates into screenplay form.

A compelling whodunnit, virtually free of the usual private eye tropes, its central character is a returning World War II vet who's accused of a murder he didn't commit.A complex slippery slide of betrayal draws him into the seedy underbelly of 1940s Los Angeles as he tries to exact justice and clear his name.We might turn to Chandler for a sense of nostalgia of times gone by -- but his stuff always cuts back with moments that feel bracingly modern.The script has beats that are surprisingly dark, gruesomely violent.He keeps trying to sneak in moments of a rawer reality than 1940s Hollywood would normally allow.

The script itself is a strange read.The editor has chosen to present a late draft, warts and all.It's laced with apparently incomplete script revisions -- the infamous green, pink, goldenrod, etc. pages thatturn production scripts into rainbow colored messes.Thus, characters' names change, chunks of dialogue -- and sometimes whole scenes -- repeat; and the clumsy jointures of late scenes are a bit too obvious.(Chandler notoriously was forced by government edict to change the identity of the killer late in the game; before your eyes, a slowly building subplot takes an almost comically surreal left turn to clear the suspect and point the finger at another player.)

The script is given context by an introductory memoir by producer John Houseman (Orson Welles' former partner in crime at the Mercury Theater and on the set of CITIZEN KANE).It's a remarkable piece, telling a troubling anecdote about how Chandler finished the draft against a looming deadline.(Chandler was churning out pages even as they were finishing shooting; the studio was racing against time to finish the picture before star Alan Ladd got sent back to the Army.)However, I'd urge you to NOT read Houseman's intro if you haven't seen the movie already as he blows some crucial plot turns.

The afterword features a historical look at Chandler's Hollywood work, including some more insights about the making of the film.Interestingly some of the details are at odds with Houseman's version.It's interesting to consider how the fragmented pieces fit together and puzzle -- like Marlowe, perhaps -- what the real version of the story is, after it's been separated from the self-serving filters of the various witnesses.

A terrific little book, but recommended only if you've burned through the rest of the Chandler oeuvre and are dying for more; or if you have a particular interest in the ugly business of how movies got, and get, made. ... Read more

Product Description
The author of such works as The Big Sleep (1939), Farewell, My Lovely (1940), The Lady in the Lake (1943), and The Long Goodbye (1953), Raymond Chandler was one of the most popular mystery writers of his time. This reference is a detailed guide to his works. A chronology and brief biography overview his life, while a section on "Chandler's World" provides alphabetically arranged entries on characters and places in his 7 novels and 25 short stories, summaries of his works, and discussions of key topics in his writings. Appendices provide information about adaptations of his fiction, along with an extensive list of primary and secondary sources for further consultation. ... Read more

Product Description
Once again available in the Modern Library are the two classic novels featuring private eye Philip Marlowe that made Raymond Chandler's name synonymous with America's hard-boiled school of crime fiction. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (12)

A polished and refined example of a rough, gritty genre
I read this largely on a whim, having had no exposure to this genre before except various parodies of it. I can easily see why this style of book in general and the "hard-boiled" presentation in particular remains popular 70+ years after the fact. After finishing The Big Sleep, my initial reaction was an urge to quit my job and become a private detective.

Chandler can write: he has an sense of vivid description, and his use of similes is masterful. His prose alone was a pleasure to read, but he also has a keen sense of characters, plots, and almost byzantine twists there-in.

Of the two stories, The Big Sleep struck me as the better of the pair both in terms of plot and presentation. I was a bit skeptical for much of Farewell My Lovely, as he seemed to be using a lot of "coincidence" to move things along -- something of a pet peev of mine -- but to my surprise he was able to tie it all together at the end in a fairly satisfactory manner. A calling card of HBDF is the slang and lingo, and there's plenty of it here, and quite often it made me chuckle.

These are interesting little time capsules of 1930s L.A.Modern readers with modern "politically correct" sensibilities should probably be warned that the books (especially Farewell) contain a good deal of un-PC sentiment: there are multiple racial stereotypes, N-bombs, and even a fair amount of misogyny. How much of this is Chandler's own view and how much is his imitation of contemporary culture I don't know, nor do I especially care. Others might not be so forgiving, so you have been cautioned.

This is worth getting for The Big Sleep alone, but Farewell My Lovely is a decent companion piece. I wouldn't want a steady diet of this type of reading, but it certainly piqued my interest enough that I will come back for more.

The Big Sleep
Nearly seventy years after it was published, The Big Sleep is still an interesting detective story with an intriguing style. This was Raymond Chandler's first published novel and it made him a celebrity. In an old interview I read somewhere, Chandler said he was going against the grain of the then-popular British detective novels that climaxed with the gathering of all the suspects into a single room while the detective revealed his brilliant solution to the crime. He meant Philip Marlow to be a more realistic and gritty detective. He succeeded. Marlow became America's favorite private eye, both in print and on the silver screen.

As I read the book, two thoughts came to me. First, the Chandler style has been copied and parodied so much, that you can easily forget that this was the original. The second is that although the novel was written at the time as a modern story, it now reads like someone wrote it today as period literature. This adds to the book's charm, sort of like the Chinatown or The Sting.

Raymond Chandler goes in and out of fashion, but if you want to curl up with a good mystery written by one of the masters, you can't go wrong with The Big Sleep.
The Shut Mouth Society
The Shopkeeper

As Hard-boiled as it gets....
"It was about eleven o'clock in the morning, mid October, with the sun not shining and a look of hard wet rain in the clearness of the foothills. I was wearing my powder-blue suit, with dark blue shirt, tie and display handkerchief, black brogues, black wool socks with dark blue clocks on them. I was neat, clean, shaved and sober, and I didn't care who knew it. I was everything the well-dressed private detective ought to be. I was calling on four million dollars."

- Philip Marlowe in The Big Sleep

And thus began the criteria for what a private eye would look like and what his moral code would be. Raymond Chandler, author of the Philip Marlowe series of crime novels, set the bar high and generations would follow in his writing footsteps. The Big Sleep and Farewell, My Lovely are two selections from this series and are found in this Modern Library edition.Both the Modern Library edition (which contains two of the Marlowe novels) and The Everyman's Library Edition (which contains three selections) are great buys.Both are hardcover and include more than one novel.The paperback version of THE BIG SLEEP is $10.36 for one.

For those of you who are new to Raymond Chandler, he is considered to be one of the most influential writers of crime fiction and his phenomenal creation of the detective Philip Marlowe has survived decades.

Every time a modern reader discovers a new private eye who is facing some interesting and very tough times but is able to do it with integrity and a strict moral code alongwith a "soldier's eye"; you are meeting Raymond Chandler the writer all over again. And Philip Marlowe his creation is playing a pivotal role in the background.

Raymond Chandler wrote seven detective novels but THE BIG SLEEP is probably his best. Farewell, My Lovely is a close second. He was in his fifties when he wrote these novels yet they have become an American landmark in the hard-boiled detective genre and would really launch Chandler into the icon that he is today.

The reader will discover a unified theme with strong and fully developed characters with incredible imagery and metaphors. Chandler's literary style is distinctive and very crisp. You will love these stories. If you are new to hard-boiled detective stories, this edition might be one that I would start with

In The Big Sleep, you will be introduced to the Sternwoods: General Sternwood, Vivian and Carmen and all three are interesting studies and all three as General Sternwood notes have not "any more moral sense than a cat." General Sternwood is on his deathbed and hired Philip Marlowe to check out why he was being blackmailed by one Arthur Gwynn Geiger. His two daughters, Vivian and Carmen, are quite a handful but General Sternwood feels in part responsible for his plight. As he tells Marlow, "I need not add that a man who indulges in parenthood for the first time at the age of fifty-four deserves all he gets." He describes his two daughters as being "spoiled, exacting, smart and ruthless with the younger girl as being the type who likes to pull wings off flies".

Chandler's novels do highlight crooks and morally-corrupt characters and derelicts, but they are counter-balanced by Marlowe, Bernie Ohls, and General Sternwood--all of whom possess a strong sense of honor, a consideration of what is proper and are for the most part trying to live a life above board.

FAREWELL, MY LOVELY is also set in Los Angeles.You will discover a focus on one of the deadly sins in all of the Chandler's genre.In the case of FML, the focus is on gambling.Chandler's novels always has its share of women loaded with sin and this is no exception.To top it off, Marlowe is continually dealing with derelicts and dirtbag characters galore.

There are numerous murders that take place and a tight interwoven plot which will keep you on the edge of your seat until you get to the last page.

Just as a sidebar, THE BIG SLEEP was published in 1939 there was only an advance of 5,000 copies by Alfred A. Knopf. However, Knopf knew the power and the contribution that this novel would make. They actually took out an advertisement for this book on the front cover of the Publisher's Weekly which was most unusual for a novelist's first book.

The dust jacket flaps read:

"Not since Dashiell Hammett appeared has there been a murder mystery story with the power, pace, and terrifying atmosphere of this one. And like Hammett's this is more than a "murder mystery": it is a novel of crime and character, written with uncommon skill in a tight, tense style which is irresistible."

And so it was. I would highly recommend reading these crime novels and being introduced to Philip Marlowe. THE BIG SLEEP was made into a movie starring Bogart and Bacall with the screen play being written by William Faulkner no less.

Don't miss these. I almost did.

Rating: A

Bentley/October 2007


The Big Sleep & Farewell, My Lovely (Modern Library)

The original detective noir genre that started it all
Raymond Chandler, the author, is the definitive writer of the detective genre.His wise-cracking, earthy detective Philip Marlowe constantly sticks his nose into dangerous places, sometimes catching the far end of a swinging fist for his troubles.And trouble is a euphemism for his working life.His books led to the creation of several famous films with Humphrey Bogart playing Marlowe.But having seen the movies, there is no comparison to the quality of Chandler's original prose.

Here are a few witty samples full of imagery from his books:
"I was neat, clean, shaved and sober, and I didn't care who knew it."
"I was as empty of life as a scarecrow's pockets."
"... he looked as inconspicuous as a tarantula on a slice of angel food."
"He looked as nervous as a brick wall."

Chandler's stories move fast and contain a lot of action, just like his protagonist.Marlowe's character is a bit of a blue-collar cynic, an occasional ladies' man, a rebel, and a steadfast (but sometimes puzzlingly) honest man.Marlowe is just an average guy who just happens to solve cases involving the rich and beautiful (and their dirty little secrets) in mid-twentieth century LA.And I suppose Marlowe's fast-talking, action-oriented character is one most of us average guys could identify with, which accounts for the success of his books.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book - I don't usually like reading fiction - and highly recommend it.Chandler really is a pleasure to read.Why couldn't we have read something like this just once in my high school English lit classes!?

The best place to start if you're a Chandler novice
Seeing as how "The Big Sleep" and "Farewell, My Lovely" are the first two Philip Marlowe detective novels that Raymond Chandler wrote (published in 1939 and 1940, respectively), this is a grand place for a Chandler novice to begin pursuing the morally decrepit alleys and boulevards of the rich and not-so-rich in Los Angeles.

One thing you should note is that Chandler held the conventional detective stories (think:Agatha Christie) in disdain.Ergo, any attempt of mine to barf back the plots to you is a waste of time.They are so complex that you often forget exactly what happened shortly after you finish reading the books themselves...which doesn't detract from their quality whatsoever mind you.It's been told often enough that after their publication, Chandler often didn't even know what was going on in his own novels!

Suffice to say that both books concern murder among the wealthy elites in L.A. during Chandler's life--a time when the city was a lot smaller than its present size, and more hostile to outsiders--particularly to people of color."The Big Sleep" concerns a disappearance and a reclusive millionaire and his two daughters (one is a mentally deranged nymphomaniac;the other is a bit more sensible, but no less shady) and the lengths he'll go to protect them.While this isn't the best Marlowe novel, this is probably the best place to start.Plus, it got made into a pretty good movie starring Bogie and Bacall.

"Farewell, My Lovely" is perhaps the most politically incorrect of the Marlowe books.It starts off with a murder at a bar in South Central L.A. and extends its tentacles into jewel heists and gambling rings where it is difficult to ascertain exactly who is doing what to whom.In Chandler's L.A., nothing is what it seems.

The story itself is engrossing, however, you must prepare yourself for Marlowe dropping the "N" word at least once, and his mockery of an American Indian for speaking in pidgeon English.Remember that this was 1940 and was 25 years before the Watts riots began to put an end to the white-dominated old boys network that used to rule L.A.That in itself makes it an interesting look at the mentality of the powers at be (the wealthy, the LAPD) and see how much has changed since Chandler's day...and how much hasn't.

My personal favorite of Chandler's books is "The Long Goodbye"--the second-to-last Marlowe novel that was published in 1954.I would rank both of these books below that one, but "Farewell, My Lovely" is a close second, while "The Big Sleep" is an auspicious debut for the hard-boiled, cynical, yet romantic ...

For those who are willing to take more than a passive interest in the works of Raymond Chandler, this two-book set is an excellent place to start.Furthermore, for those who are merely casual Chandler fans, this set is great because these two books are among his best (and it looks nice on your bookshelf too!) ... Read more

Product Description
Hard-boiled crime fiction captured the nat. imagination in the 1930s & flourished for several decades thereafter. In the work of Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, & Ross Macdonald, which featured tough-minded private eyes like Philip Marlowe, Sam Spade, & Lew Archer, emerges a distinctively American, & proletarian, kind of hero. This is a documentary chronicle of the life beyond & the work behind the creation of some of the most masterly detective novels in pop. Amer. lit. Includes correspond. & interviews; the authors' responses to judgments of their work in reviews; & the reviews themselves. Illustrated with personal photos & reproductions of manuscript pages, letters, print ads, movie promotions, dust jackets, & paperback covers. ... Read more

Product Description

Product Description

More than any other writer, Raymond Chandler (1888-1959) is responsible for raising detective stories from the level of pulp fiction to literature. Chandler's hard-boiled private eye Philip Marlowe set the standard for rough, brooding heroes who managed to maintain a strong sense of moral conviction despite a cruel and indifferent world. Chandler's seven novels, including The Big Sleep (1939) and The Long Goodbye (1953), with their pessimism and grim realism, had a direct influence on the emergence of film noir. Chandler worked to give his crime novels the flavor of his adopted city, Los Angeles, which was still something of a frontier town, rife with corruption and lawlessness. In addition to novels, Chandler wrote short stories and penned the screenplays for several films, including Double Indemnity (1944) and Strangers on a Train (1951). His work with Billy Wilder and Alfred Hitchcock on these projects was fraught with the difficulties of collaboration between established directors and an author who disliked having to edit his writing on demand. Creatures of Darkness is the first major biocritical study of Chandler in twenty years. Gene Phillips explores Chandler's unpublished script for Lady in the Lake, examines the process of adaptation of the novel Strangers on a Train, discusses the merits of the unproduced screenplay for Playback, and compares Howard Hawks's director's cut of The Big Sleep with the version shown in theaters. Through interviews he conducted with Wilder, Hitchcock, Hawks, and Edward Dmytryk over the past several decades, Phillips provides deeper insight into Chandler's sometimes difficult personality. Chandler's wisecracking Marlowe has spawned a thousand imitations. Creatures of Darkness lucidly explains the author's dramatic impact on both the literary and cinematic worlds, demonstrating the immeasurable debt that both detective fiction and the neo-noir films of today owe to Chandler's stark vision.

Customer Reviews (2)

Chandler and Hollywood: Poisonous Marriage w/ Beautiful Kids
A very interesting and thorough examination of the film-related work of mystery legend Raymond Chandler, creator of the ultimate film noir gumshoe, Phillip Marlowe. The books follows Chandler's career and work from pulpy dime detective story-writer, to novelist, to screenwriter. Chandler was an odd, cantankerous fellow who hated working in Hollywood, but the character he created is forever in the pantheon of American detective film heroes.

An Admirable Mess
Is it possible for a book to be both invaluable and annoyingly almost unreadable? If so, this is the one. Phillips is absolutely on target in both his evaluation of Chandler's place in literature (High) and his fascinating comparisons of book to film of EVERYTHING the author wrote. Fans of Marlowe, fans of detective stories, fans of film noir, and film fans in general, will find a treasure trove within these pages. B U T.... Phillips writes like a student who has been given a writing assignment of "x" number of words and has to fulfill it. Either that or someone who is being paid by the word! Not only does he repeat the same information, often with virtually the same words, two, three, four, and more times within the book, he often does so within the same paragraph, and, on occasion, the same sentence!If you can, as I did, learn to spot this trend and skip whole passages as less necessary than a sequel to "Little Nicky", there is much to be gleaned from the book. Just resist throwing it against the wall in exasperation. ... Read more

Amazon.com Review
Raymond Chandler's work as a Hollywood screenwriter includesgreat movies such as Billy Wilder's Double Indemnity andAlfred Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train. Inaddition, all but one of Chandler's novels has been adapted for themovies. His Philip Marlowe books have inspired classics that include HowardHawks's The Big Sleep and Edward Dmytryk's Murder, My Sweet as wellas satires of the detective film like Paul Bogart's Marlowe andRobert Altman's The Long Goodbye. William Luhr's incisiveanalysis reveals how powerfully Chandler has influenced the genre ofthe detective film. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Classic Stories - Good collection
Most people who buy this collection will already have read these Chandler classics, so there is little to say about the content.It is good to have them in one volume.

A Great Buy
This volume contains four Philip Marlow novels, "The Big Sleep", "Farewell, My Lovely", "The High Window" and "The Lady In The Lake." It also has a good introduction. ... Read more

Product Description
Four years after writing his first novel, THE BIG SLEEP, Raymond Chandler found himself sitting in an office at Paramount Studios earning a weekly salary that amounted to almost half of what he had received for the film rights to his second novel, FAREWELL MY LOVELY. Despite the considerable rewards, he was always uncertain, often disgruntled, never at ease. RAYMOND CHANDLER IN HOLLYWOOD is an entertaining and comprehensive assessment of Chandler's turbulent association with Hollywood, both as a screenwriter whose credits included DOUBLE INDEMNITY, THE BLUE DAHLIA, and STRANGERS ON A TRAIN and as the provider of source material - his six filmmed novels have so far yielded ten movies. Illustrated with rare stills, posters, and location photographs, this book provides a special insight into the work of the world's most acclaimed writer of detective fiction. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Good for those who don't know Chandler
This book provides an entertaining look at film adaptations of Chandler's books and at the movies made from his screenplays.If you've read anything about Chandler, nothing here will be news to you, but if you haven't, this is a good introduction, with long plot-summary-type discussions of the movies and plenty of pictures. ... Read more

Product Description
"I don't know why the hell I write so many letters," Raymond Chandler once mused to a correspondent. "I guess my mind is just to active for its own good."
In the seven novels from The Big Sleep (1939) to Playback (1958) and in a handful of short stories, Raymond Chandler recorded a vision of Southern California life sparked by acerbic observations on every level of coast society, from drug dealers and crooked cops to heiresses. But Chandler's gifts of observation and analysis extended well past the streets, alleyways, roadhouses, and stately homes that made up the world of his detective-hero Phillip Marlowe.
Brought together in this volume are some of the hundreds of letters Chandler wrote-many of them composed during long, insomniac nights. Chandler commented on all that he saw around him, from his own personal foibles, to the works of his contemporaries Ernest Hemingway and Edmund Wilson, to education, English society, and world events. Acute, sometimes impassioned, often witty, the Selected Letters of Raymond Chandler contains lively anecdotes of Hollywood, critical dissections of his fellow writers of detective fiction, lengthy discussions of the art of writing and of his own fiction, and, above all, amused, sometimes outraged glimpses of the Southern California society that was his inspiration.
Chandler once wrote that "in letters I sometimes seem to have been more penetrating than in any other kind of writing." But his letters could also be combative, as when he wrote to an editor at the Atlantic that "when I split an infinitive, God damn it, I intend that it should stay split," or dismissive, as when he said of James M. Cain that "everything he writes smells like a billy goat." He could also be painfully revealing, as when he wrote of his despair over the death of his wife. "It was my great and now useless regret," Chandler confessed, "that I never wrote anything really worthy her attention, no book that I could dedicate to her."
Lively, entertaining, and sometimes touching, these letters fully present for the first time the complex sensibilities of a man who was one of America's greatest writers of detective novels, and one of its most astute observers. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Inside the Mind of an Original
Raymond Chandler died 43 years ago, yet the seven novels he wrote have ALL been in print since their original publication.Why?Because Chandler was a first-rate prose stylist who took the hard-boiled detective novel places it had never been before...and has seldom been since.

THE SELECTED LETTERS OF RAYMOND CHANDLER is for anyone who loves THE BIG SLEEP, FAREWELL MY LOVELY and all the rest.It gives us a chance to get inside Chandler's head, to listen to him expound on Hollywood, the art of writing, the publishing business, the agony of seeing a wife die a slow death.

Like Sam Clemens, Chandler wrote a good many letters.And like that other great American original, not all the letters are memorable, but a LOT of them have a snap and bite that still resonate a half century later.For example:

"Television is really what we've been looking for all our lives.It took a certain mount of effort to go to the movies.Somebody had to stay with the kids.You had to get the car out of the garage.That was hard work.And you had to drive and park.Sometimes you had to walk as much as half a block to the theater.Then people with big fat heads would sit in front of you and make you nervous.Reading took less physical effort, but you had to concentrate a little, even when you were reading a mystery...And every once in awhile you were apt to trip over a three-syllable word.That was pretty hard on the brain....

But television's perfect.You turn a few knobs, a few of those mechanical adjustments at which the higher apes are so proficient, and lean back and drain your mind of all thought.And there you are watching the bubbles in the primieval ooze.You don't have to concentrate.You don't have to react.You don't have to remember.You don't miss your brain because you don't need it.Your heart and liver and lungs continue to function normally.Apart from that, all is peace and quiet...And if some nasty-minded person comes along and says you look more like a fly on a can of garbage, pay him no mind.He probably hasn't got the price of a television set."

Like I said.Chandler was one of a kind.Writing letters or writing novels.

A fascinating glimpse into the mind of a great writer!
This collection offers the fan of America's most under-rated novelist a glimpse into his mind, this relationships, his thoughts.The index allows a reader to find very specific references to subjects.Highly recommendedfor the serious student of Chandler. ... Read more

Product Description

Customer Reviews (10)

POSTERITY NOW
Forty years after his death Chandler was in need of a new study, both of his life and of his writing. This one strikes me as dealing with the former better than with the latter, but it has interesting and illuminating things to say about both. However what I want to commend the book for above all is just how readable it is. Chandler himself had some trenchant and uncomplimentary things to say about some of the more intellectual kinds of writing, creative as well as critical, Hiney quotes some of these with evident approval, and I fancy the book was written with a sense of Chandler's ghost looking over the biographer's shoulder, alert to detect and deflate pretentiousness.

Chandler's story is a triumph of talent over alcoholic insecurity. He never knew his alcoholic father, and he was educated through the charity, far from affectionate but very real and very patient and long-suffering, of an uncle. He attended one of England's better schools, presided over by one of the more enlightened headmasters of the time. This headmaster instilled a distaste for insincerity and pretence that stayed with Chandler to the end. Chandler was always a bit of a loner. In his early years his only real relationship was with his hard-pressed mother, and he displayed an innocence that stayed with him throughout his life too that lurks behind the seeming worldliness and disillusionment that he displays both in his books and in his dealings with the world around him. He once said of himself that he `could be a good second-rate anything.' This was a fairly modest self-assessment, given his brains and astuteness. He achieved rapid promotion in his Californian oil company through his gift for figures and his alertness to fraud until his drinking brought that career to an end. His later business dealings were also fairly savvy, both in Hollywood and in relation to his publishers and agents, and his sheer ability ensured that although he died a booze-sodden ruin he did not die a poor one. He seems even to have possessed real interpersonal ability too through his wit and charm whenever he could be bothered to exercise it. However to the end of his days he made few friends and retained fewer. After his mother's death he cared greatly for nobody in particular with the solitary exception of his hyperbolic devotion to his wife. Innocent in some ways to the end, he had fallen for her claim to be ten years younger than she was, and their relationship reads to me less like some grand passion than like the tale of a shipwrecked mariner who has developed a strong affection for the lifebelt that is keeping him afloat.

On the literary side, there are copious quotations from Chandler's letters, which is a good thing for giving us some of his less-known wisecracks. I had expected to see more about The Simple Art of Murder, the article in which Chandler expounds his ideas of the detective story and of Marlowe. However one mystery was solved for me. When young I knew the seven Marlowe novels virtually by heart, but to this day I have never been able to follow the plot of any of them. No wonder, it seems. Chandler himself claims to have been writing without actually knowing whodunnit until late in the stories. He did not want his books to be read for the sake of knowing who killed whoever it was, but for their quality as novels. Excellent. However in that case why does Mr Hiney devote so much of his comment to summarising the plots? He is not even entirely accurate, but what I criticise is not that, which on his and Chandler's own showing is unimportant, but the proportion of the text given to these summaries. There is not really much about what made Chandler the phenomenon he was, and was recognised for by the great and the good such as Eliot, Auden and Waugh. There is a certain amount about the relative quality of the seven novels, and a certain amount of it I go along with, such as that The High Window is not quite the equal of the books that preceded it and immediately followed it. As he works his way through them, I sense myself diverging from him. He may be more in line with mainstream opinion than I am, but he is not fully explicit about his own views, so I shall venture mine.

Marlowe, to me, is partly an idealised figure. One would infer this from The Simple Art without reading the books. Hiney seems happy with a certain development in Marlowe's character, reminiscent of the Doonesbury series, that naturally belongs in the later books; and I do not think this is the best way to appreciate them. The earlier books find Marlowe resilient, intelligent certainly but not greatly introspective, cynical certainly but not exactly disillusioned, able to soak up incredible quantities of punishment (although perfectly credible quantities of alcohol - Hiney exaggerates this), but always ready with the immortal dialogue and bons mots that make these books unique. There is detailed observation and description (of Marriott say, or Amthor) but there is never much sense of personal involvement. And it is precisely this detachment that makes Marlowe and Chandler what they amount to. Relax this restriction - have any of the characters talk more confessionally, show more in-depth interest - and the magic formula is voided; and that, for me, is the undoing of The Long Goodbye. Of all the seven books, Hiney shows least interest in The Little Sister, and I wonder whether I'm out on a limb in thinking it the best of them. It's like fruit on the point of going overripe, the plot is more incomprehensible than ever, and the dialogue is Chandler's very best (how does Hiney manage to find the sad Playback the funniest of these novels?) It has something else too - a palpable sense of the LA sunshine that I have come to know so well.

I also miss anything about Chandler as a literary craftsman. It's unusual for a private detective to comment on Flaubert, but Chandler admired him, and in the first five of his novels you will get the same impression that every sentence, indeed every word, has been carefully worked on. Chandler was a great writer as well as a great novelist, he is still wearing well nearly 50 years after he died, this book serves his memory well and I drink to that.

Hiney's Detective Work Yields All The Clues
While other reviewers apparently fault the author for daring to depict the rather ordinary demise of the "great man", Chandler's life was more devoted to his isolation and misogyny than it was to his novels.Hiney's triumph is showing what an interesting life it was, nonetheless.Chandler was just a writer who loved words more than he loved people, who loaded up his cynicism in neat little rounds and fired at humanity with some precision.That same cynicism drove him to view life through the bottom of a shot glass, at no little cost to his art (or I suppose as some might argue to enhance his art).Mostly he wanted to get it right - mostly he did, especially in "The Long Goodbye".I like that Hiney doesn't let theextraordinary Mr. Marlowe overshadow the strains of ordinariness in Chandler's character.I certainly enjoy Chandler's fiction the greater for this very good life.

He Made A Bad Ending
Tom Hiney brings no new material to this biography and no startling new approach to the previous and very enjoyable biography by Frank MacShane. This is however a more contemporary book, written with a breezy journalistic style which makes it hard to put down, indeed compulsive. Not least in its charms is the snap and crackle of nearly everything Chandler himself wrote, not least the letters, which Hiney is wise enough to quote from liberally.

My main complaint is that I came away from this book with a sense of the author's disgust at his subject's decline into chaotic behaviour and helplessness after the death of his wife. My recollection of the MacShane book is of a certain tragic sympathy in the treatment of Chandler's last, disasterous years. Here one feels Hiney is disappointed with Chandler, that somehow the hero he has been peddling let him down. It is somehow the reader of the biography who is let down, suddenly finding the author whose wit he has grown rather fond of, dismissed as a sad old drunk. A readable book, but skip the ending if you like your Chandler, and go to the letters - which do not fail to show this sad, witty man at his droll best.

Good read with baffling errors
This biography reads very well, but it's almost impossible to understand, as other reviewers have noted, how Mr. Hiney could have made such egregious errors recounting the plot of Farewell, My Lovely. It calls into question the possible accuracy of his research into biographical details. On pages 116-117 of the paperback edition, there are three key errors. First, Hiney indicates Marriott was killed by his cronies, but it was Velma/Mrs. Grayle who killed him. Next Hiney claims Jules Amthor was a pyschiatrist, but Amthor was a psychic consultant. Hiney then uses Marlowe's sarcastic portrayal of the people who call on Amthor as a veiled reference to Chandler's views on psychiatrists, whom Chandler had consulted during his bouts with alcoholism during his oil industry days. The leap taken by here by Hiney on wrong information is just mind-boggling. On a far less egregious error he quotes Anne Riordan as saying to Marlowe "Do you have to say things like that?" because, according to Mr. Hiney, "Anne is fond of Marlowe, but doesn't like the swear words he uses." But Anne's response isn't to a swear word, instead it comes after this line from Marlowe: "The Mayor is doing all this, changing his pants hourly while the crisis lasts." This error is minor compared to confusing who killed Marriott and the psychiatrist/psychic consultant problem, but as a third mistake within justs two pages, any reader who's familiar with Marlowe's books may be ready to throw Hiney's biography out the window. And that's a shame because it's a very readable bio.

Should have been far better
I thoroughly agree with the last reviewer Mr Reed. Hiney's biography contains a significant number of very basic errors in describing the plots of Raymond Chandler's novels and short stories. These are elementarydetails, and a serious biographer has no excuse for making obvious factualmistakes.

I don't think this is a bad book either, but I do questionconclusions of anyone who cannot check source material thoroughly.

FrankMacShane wrote a biography of Raymond Chandler which I believe is farbetter than Mr Hiney's work. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

A good introduction for the Marlowe novice.
A 2007 Summer mini review.

When I began reading this book, I had never read a Phillip Marlowe story.The idea of filling out his "life" and giving other writers a crack at the sleuth intrigued me.

While the selections produced by the assemblage of various mystery writers is top notch, it was not difficult to surmise that no one writes Marlowe like Chandler.His "The Pencil" is hands down the best story the volume has to offer.

The Perfect Crime by Max Allan Collins seems to catch Marlowe's penchant for taking the law in his own hands. Stardust Kill by Simon Brett gives us a glimpse of the type of corruption that the detective encountered in his career.The final story, Summer in Idle Valley by Roger L. Simon, is a whimsical encounter between Chandler, Marlowe and Dr. Seuss.Each story begins with an illustration and ends with authors' commentary on the impact of Raymond Chandler on their own writings.These musings, as much as the stories, make me want to become more intimately associated with the detective.

Collection of Chandler pastiches is uneven
Raymond Chandler and Philip Marlowe are the beginning of modern detective fiction, along with Hammett and Spade. Chandler was a preeminent stylist who wrote his way into American letters by helping to create a genre, the private eye novel. He cut his teeth writing short stories for pulps in the twenties and thirties, so it's appropriate that this collection highlights short stories. The stories were written by contemporary authors; the idea was to have them write stories with Marlowe as the main character, covering the period in which Marlowe figured in short stories that Chandler wrote. There is one story per year, with several on the back end of the collection that don't carry an exact date, and one story ("The Pencil") written by Chandler himself, late in life, to round things out.

The collection is, of course, uneven. Most of the writers more or less produce Chandler-like prose and characters, but some of the plots are distinctly unlike the great one. The collection starts off on the right foot with a Max Allan Collins story which is very good, and in the Collins mold. It's a historical mystery revolving around a thin pastiche of an old Hollywood mystery: who killed actress Thelma Todd? The rest of the stories are written by such leading lights as Robert Crais, Sara Paretsky, and Loren D. Estleman. They're rounded out by stories from such also-rans and where-are-they-nows as Benjamin Schutz, Francis Nevins Jr., Jonathan Valin, and Jeremiah Healy. I don't want to give the impression that I don't like any of the latter collection of writers (I particularly enjoyed Schutz), but they can hardly be called contemporaries, given that they haven't written in years.

I did enjoy the collection of stories, and I enjoyed the premise of the collection itself. I found the stories uneven. Some of them are very good, but some are overly cute. Two feature Chandler as a character, interacting with Marlowe. In one of those, he also butts heads with Ted Geisel (Dr. Seuss), who's only there, apparently, because he's Dr. Seuss. It's all a bit much. However, I overall enjoyed the collection, and would recommend it.

". . . So many continue to assault the citadel . . . "
In the title to this review, I borrowed Chandler's quote from his essay, "The Simple Art of Murder." It does seem appropriate, for this volume is the ultimate celebration of Raymond Chandler's genius -- simply because of the failure of most of the writers who partake herein!

The premise of this anthology is simple: Published for the centennial celebration of Raymond Chandler's birth; therefore, invite the top mystery writers of the day (1989) to submit a short story involving his ultimate literary creation, Phillip Marlowe, set between 1933 (the year in which Chandler published his first short story) and 1959 (the year of Chandler's death, and the year in which he published his last short story).

Real simple, huh? (Hah!)

Frankly, only Max Allan Collins (of 'Nate Heller' fame) comes even remotely close, in his roman-a-clef treatment of Hollywood star Thelma Todd's murder. (Note: Chandler himself would use not only certain aspects of her death -- i.e., a question of the slippers she was wearing ['The Lady In The Lake'] -- but the Santa Monica location itself [the description of Lindsey Marriott's Bay City address in 'Farewell My Lovely']. Chandler based many of his own short stories -- as well as the circumstances in at least two of his novels -- on contemporary Los Angeles history and events.)

This collection, as I mentioned previously, memorializes Raymond Chandler's success through the failures of subsequent authors. (These failures are due to many individual shortcomings, a lack of knowledge of L.A. history and development, on the one hand; or, frankly, of geography, on the other, as well as a simple lack of understanding of Chandler's concept for his protagonist -- i.e., one particular story which practically canonizes Marlowe back in his Santa Rosa hometown -- let alone his singular vision.)

A collection of very good mystery writers took part in this project. Their failure to recreate Raymond Chandler's singular vision is in no way a criticism, but rather a stirring acknowledgment of his achievement. It is also a testament as to why, again, as Chandler put it, "So many continue to assault the citadel."

The Long Let-Down
This was an exceedingly disappointing book. The stories were almost all adequately written but few of them did justice to Chandler's creation. Stuart Kaminsky and Max Allan Collins, as well as a couple of others, turn in admirable efforts. One star of my rating is for them. The other star is for Chandler's story 'The Pencil' alone.

It is fine that the authors speak in their own voice; who, after all, could truly duplicate Chandler's awesome prose? Yet they not only fail to match his skill, they fail to match his intent. Too often in this collection, Marlowe is bastardized for the sake of the author's political leanings, to advance a cause.

Marlowe was a hero in spite of himself, a champion of the lower classes, one with probable leftward leanings. (Chandler had acquired a refined dislike, or at least mistrust, of the upper crust during his formative years in England.) But as Marlowe prowled the mean streets righting wrongs, seeing that justice was done when the law would not quite do it, Chandler never allowed himself to preach. And that is what a couple of these stories do. It was a testament to Chandler's supreme skill that he could be such a strong voice for counterculture and yet ultimately fight to keep some type of moral status quo in gray circumstances.

Authors paying tribute to Dickens would not portray Tiny Tim as walking into a bank, speechifying on the plight of the poor and beating the rich old moneychangers on their heads with his crutch. And authors paying tribute to Chandler should not have had him doing many of the pettily pointed things he was doing in this book. Does anyone really think Marlowe would punch someone connected with the HUAC and sanctimoniously call him an a******? There are other similar forays into homiletic demagoguery. They are hollow, totally out of place, and out of character. Marlowe didn't operate that way, and it cheapens an icon to act as though he did.

Interestingly, and not surprisingly, those authors who fudged with the legacy the most were also those who said in their brief comments that they were the least influenced by Chandler. Why include them?

Check it out from your local library, read it, and return it; it's not worth purchasing.

Interesting read for Chandler fans
One of noir's greatest characters handled by the writers influenced by his creator.An great idea to celebrate the centennial, but a bit uneven in my opinion.This can hardly be avoided when so many hands are in the pot, buta majority of the stories are well-written, and it's a plesant surprisewhen other Chandler characters make cameos.The year by year treatment ofMarlowe was another good take, but again, due to the varied styles of thewriters, development of the character is not a priority.Good book, greatfor fans, but I'd suggest sticking to the original. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

the life of raymond chandler
fine service, decent copy of the book ordered, rcvd faster than expected, reliable, will order agn ... Read more

Product Description
An omnibus comprising Raymond Chandler's three Philip Marlowe novels, "The Lady in the Lake", "The High Window" and "The Little Sister". ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

p.i. mystery classic
This book is a great private investigator novel.It takes place in southern CA and is a dynamite read.Chandler continues to be a terrific writer. ... Read more

Product Description
Tough-minded and typically idiosyncratic, here is ChandleronChandler, the mystery novel, writing, Hollywood, TV, publishing, cats,andfamous crimes. This skillfully edited selection of letters, articles,and notesalso includes the short story "A Couple of Writers" and the firstchapters ofChandler's last Philip Marlowe novel, The Poodle Springs Story, leftunfinishedat his death. Paul Skenazy has provided a new introduction for thisedition aswell as a new selected bibliography.Amazon.com Review
The pieces in this collection show the creator of PhillipMarlowe to be a sensitive and thoughtful man, though someone whoseemed to like nothing more than speaking his mind. Chandler kept uplively correspondences with friends and in his letters he commentswith true candor on books, films, people, and the characters hecreated. In one priceless letter he berates a publisher over the coverof an edition of Farewell, My Lovely:"The bedspring shown in your cover illustration is entirelywrong, since it is a type of spring which is very light and would beuseless as a weapon ..." And with that, he's only gettingstarted. In excerpts from his notebooks he holds forth on writing, andone of the masters of the hardboiled mystery passes along much workingknowledge of his craft. Chandler's essay "Writers InHollywood," which first appeared in the Atlantic Monthlyin 1945, holds up wonderfully (though if published today it wouldrequire the addition of some zeros to the figures Chandlercites). Raymond Chandler Speaking is a small treasure house oflively thoughts and crisp prose. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

"The Simple Art of Editing" Part 2: 99.99% useless
I believe the first edition of this book was published in the late sixties. Well before the 1982 publication of Frank MacShane's gigantic tome "The Selected Letters of Raymond Chandler", and Robert B. Parker's "Poodle Springs" in which he would complete "The Poodle Springs Story" But now that those books exist (one of which has been reprinted in two seperate editions to tie in with HBO's 1998 telvision movie "Poodle Springs") they make "Raymond Chandler Speaking" obsolete and as such 99.99% useless. All of the essays that are reprinted are also reprinted in the stellar Library of America volume "Later Novels and Other Writings" All of the added together means that the sole reason to purchase "Raymond Chandler Speaking" is the short story "A Couple of Writers". Why no one else has reprinted it is beyond me. And another thing, how can a whole section be devoted to Raymond Chandler on famous crimes and not include Chandler's 1948 article for "Cosmopolitan" "The Ten Greatest Crimes of the Century"??? In which case "Raymond Chandler Speaking would only be 99.98% useless as this article has not been published in book form. I obtained my copy from the public library in the form of a grainy photocopy. As near as I can tell, this paperback copy was published in '97 which would have given them more than enough time from the publication of Macshane and Parker's books to revise this new edition to include more relevant items.

It's been surpassed
Originally published in 1962, this collage of excerpts from Chandler's letters, essays and drafts today is a rather unsatisfactory way to begin dabbling in Chandler's non-fiction.A much better book is the Selected Letters of Raymond Chandler, and I understand a new book of the man's correspondance will be published in early 2001.The problem with Raymond Chandler Speaking is that everything is sliced, diced and presented in a very artificial order.You have a sections such as "Raymond Chandler on Cats," Raymond Chandler on Detective Novels," and "Raymond Chandler on Writers."Most of the material is excerpted from letters--letters which appear in full and in chronological order in the Selected Letters of RC.In this book, just as Chandler's rhythm starts to click in, just as the writing's beginning to get interesting, the snippet ends.Editor Dorothy Gardiner has made a good first attempt at giving readers a feel for the author, but its been done much better since then.Of course, you get some good oddball selections from RC, like a short story ("A Couple of Writers"), the "Writers in Hollywood" essay and RC's contribution to Poodle Springs, a 12-page start to a novel that Robert B. Parker would later finish and publish as a post-mortem collaboration.There's enough here to warrant a Chandler completist to include in his/her collection, but if you want to read something with a little more momentum and that gives you a better sense of RC as a person, read the Selected Letters first.

Chandler:As Rich and Satisfying as Grandma's Custard
A "page turner" is a term I usually reserve for compelling and dramatic fiction, but in this case it is apt for "Raymond Chandler Speaking," the closest thing we have to a memoir or autobiography fromthe most influential mystery writer of the 20th century.Although not aparticularly prolific novelist, Chandler was, nevertheless, an inveterateletter writer, and his words, penned in the haunting hours of the night andprobably often in an alcoholic stupor, provide wonderful insight into thisman who turned a low-brow fictional form into poetry.If you've enjoyedhis novels, but not gotten around to this collection of letters and a fewother writings (including the first four chapters of his last novel,"Poodle Springs"), then you're in for a treat:the colorfulphrase, the scintillating simile, the terse but punchy sentence-alltrademarks of his groundbreaking fiction-are found in abundance here, asChandler waxes philosophically on Hollywood, agents, writers, publishers,and cats (the feline kind).You will find something in this small volumethat you could not possibly anticipate on a topic you would think would beoff turf:for me it was Chandler writing on the dysfunctional effects oftelevision, as he saw it in 1950; with pen cynically dripping with sarcasm,he wrote:"Television is really what we have been looking for all ourlives.... You turn a few knobs, a few of those mechanical adjustments atwhich the higher apes are so proficient, and lean back and drain your mindof all thought.... You don't have to concentrate.You don't have to react. You don't have to remember.You don't miss your brain because you don'tneed it."Fifty years later, a good portion of the sum of academic andprofessional criticism of television are mere extensions of Chandler'sintuitive judgment about the medium.Chandler's matchless mind andpersonality could have led him to many successful careers, if he controlledhis personal demons; but he chose detective fiction over business,academics, politics or social/cultural criticism.This volume of lettersand writings give us insight into his complex mind with its deep secretsand doubts.Little wonder this book, first published in 1962, remains(with updated introductory material) in print and a staple for librariesand the personal collections of people who like exploring the treads ofgenius that launched a new literary form. ... Read more

Product Description
An extraordinary case study giving the sensational but highly detailed factual evidence about allegations against Michael Jackson, self-styled 'King of Pop'. It is about being in the centre of the maelstrom that became the life of Jordie Chandler, the young boy, and his family, who were involved with Jackson. It is a blow-by-blow account of their relationship both while their story was undetected and afterwards when all concerned were hit by the media feeding frenzy - and worse - in what remains one of the major scandals of pop history. The author claims to unmask Michael Jackson and to put the spotlight on character traits of paedophiles; on the US legal system; on a cunning plot of deception and manipulation; on a campaign of vilification and victimisation; on how fame and power corrupted; and on a story that is increasingly topical again as the new Jackson trial looms. A highly accessible and gripping account of a drama - that included a USD20 million pay out - by one who had a ringside seat. "He (Michael) said that we had a little box, and this was a secret - and it's a box that only he and I could share.You put the secret in the box and nobody can know about what's in the box but him and me.He said that we weren't conditioned, but if this box were revealed to other people, like regular people of today's society, they're conditioned and so they would believe it was wrong. And so that's why I shouldn't reveal what's in the box." ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

it's obvious there's not a single fact in this book
No wonder the child in this case sued for emancipation from his parents and never saw them again.No wonder Evan Chandler ended his life with a bullet in his head.The author of this book and his brother Evan Chandler come across as the greediest and most egoistic men I've ever read about and they've deserved every second of the hell they created for themselves.In this book they relish destroying all the innocents around them to "WIN" their little game of extorting money from Michael Jackson with absolutely no regard for anyone or anything around them including THE CHILD!The Chandlers and their lawyers will truly do ANYTHING FOR MONEY or a little power/ego trip.Hearing this story and all the obvious fabrications in this book make it crystal clear that the 1993 allegations against Michael Jackson were nothing more than EXTORTION.The ONLY so called evidence in this book against Jackson that hasn't been proven 100% false is the story Evan Chandler made up and coached his son to tell the psychiatrist when he illegally took the child from his mother.If a lawyer ever had the opportunity to cross examine these witnesses I have no doubt the story would have fallen apart, big time. Even their own psychiatrist states that Jackson behavior IS NOT consistent with pedophilia.The DA never charged Jackson in '93 because they simply didn't have a case.The DA didn't win a single point with the jury in '05 because they simply didn't have a case.The Chandlers didn't wait to pursue a civil suit until after securing a criminal prosecution (the best strategy in a legitimate case) because this was NEVER about anything other than extortion.Boy, when you add up all the pieces of the puzzle it's really clear what sleeze bags these guys are.My heart goes out to the Jackson family.As a society, we have a lot of soul searching to do about how we tarred and feathered Michael Jackson, an innocent man, who only wanted to sing and dance and give back to make the world a better place.

Not for the MJ fan
This book is written by a relative of the accusers of Michael Jackson's child molestation charges.It's a hard read and I had a tough time getting through it. Don't believe everything you read!! Justice for Michael!

yellow journalism isn't journalism
"All That Glitters" is an interesting story, but a lot of it is conjuncture and mostly speculation on the author's part. Keep in mind, the keyword is "story". Raymond Chandler admits that he had no contact with his brother (the father of the boy who made an allegation against Michael Jackson nearly 16 years ago), yet he has enough opinions and "facts" to fill up an entire book. What is questionable is even by the author's own account (and this is not a pro-Michael book) he shows how money-motivated and greedy his brother was. It was both perplexing and auspicious to read how supposedly the child's parent basically let his son do whatever he pleased and then cooked up the scheme to soak Michael Jackson out of funds. The author also details how the father was very interested to have Michael finance his screenplay which may explain why the father turned on him when it was never sold. Since the recent and tragic death of Michael Jackson reports have begun to circulate stating that Raymond Chandler's nephew denied all of the '93 allegations. I would like to know what the author thinks about this. The only thing this book proves is that Michael Jackson was too trusting as far as greedy and money-hungry people were concerned.

Terrible book
In my opinion, you should save your money. This reads as if the author has a hardware store full of axes to grind. If you're a budding attorney, the legal manuevering might be interesting. ... Read more