Raymond (Thornton) Chandler - Biography, Novels, Short stories, Non-fiction, Famous quotes, Cultural references, Trivia

Writer, born in Chicago, Illinois, USA. Taken to England by his mother at age nine, he was educated there and on the Continent. He worked as a journalist for English magazines and served in the Canadian army in World War 1. Settling in the USA in 1919, he worked as a businessman, including 10 years with the oil industry (1922–32), but with the publication of his first crime story in Black Mask magazine (1933), he concentrated on writing. He created the hard-boiled sleuth, Phillip Marlowe, and tawdry underworld settings for his first novel, The Big Sleep (1939). The character of Marlowe reappeared in later works, including Farewell, My Lovely (1940) and The Long Goodbye (1954), which helped establish the American conventions of the genre. He resided between California and London in his later years.

Raymond Thornton Chandler (July 23, 1888 – March 26, 1959) was an author of crime stories and novels. Chandler's protagonist, Philip Marlowe, has become synonymous with the tradition of the hard-boiled private detective, along with Dashiell Hammett's Sam Spade.

Biography

Chandler was born in Chicago, Illinois, in 1888, but moved to Britain in 1895 when his parents divorced. After leaving the Civil Service, Chandler worked as a jobbing journalist, and continued to write poetry in the late Romantic style.

Chandler returned to the U.S. in 1912 and trained as a bookkeeper and accountant. By virtue of his American wife Chandler now had both British and American nationalities. By 1932 Chandler had attained a vice-presidency at Dabney Oil Syndicate in Signal Hill, California but lost this well-paying job as a result of his alcoholism.

He taught himself to write pulp fiction in an effort to draw an income from his creative talents, and his first story was published in Black Mask in 1933. His first novel, The Big Sleep, was published in 1939.

Chandler worked as a Hollywood screenwriter following the success of his novels, working with Billy Wilder on James M. Chandler also collaborated on the screenplay of Alfred Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train (1951).

As a result of his earnings in the UK Chandler fell foul of the income tax authorities there in 1946.

His long desire to take Cissy to England was fulfilled in 1952.

Cissy died in 1954 and Chandler, heartbroken and suffering from a painful nervous disease, turned once again to drink.

Chandler's finely wrought prose was widely admired by critics and writers from the highbrow (W.H.

Chandler wrote very evocatively of Los Angeles and its environs in the late 1940s, the setting for his novels.

Chandler was also a perceptive critic of pulp fiction, and his essay "The Simple Art of Murder" is a standard academic reference.

All of Chandler's novels have been adapted for film, most notably The Big Sleep (1946), directed by Howard Hawks and starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall. Chandler's screenwriting, as limited as it was, and the adaptation of his novels to screen in the 1940s were important influences on American film noir.

Novels

The Big Sleep (1939), his first Farewell, My Lovely (1940) The High Window (1942) The Lady in the Lake (1943) The Little Sister (1949) The Long Goodbye (1954) (Edgar Award for Best Novel, 1955) Playback (1958) Poodle Springs (1959) (incomplete; Parker in 1989)

All concern the cases of a Los Angeles investigator named Philip Marlowe. Farewell, My Lovely, The Big Sleep, and The Long Goodbye are arguably his masterpieces.

Short stories

Chandler's short stories typically chronicled the adventures of Philip Marlowe or other down-on-their luck private detectives (John Dalmas, Steve Grayce) or similarly inclined good samaritans (such as Mr. Carmady). Interestingly, in the 1950s radio series "The Adventures of Philip Marlowe", which included adaptations from the stories, other protagonists were exchanged for Marlowe (for example, Marlowe for Steve Grayce in the adaptation of "The King in Yellow").

Detective short stories

"Blackmailers Don't Shoot" (1933) "Smart-Aleck Kill" (1934) "Finger Man" (1934) "Killer in the Rain" (1935) "Nevada Gas" (1935) "Spanish Blood" (1935) "The Curtain" (1936) "Guns at Cyrano's" (1936) "Goldfish" (1936) "The Man Who Liked Dogs" (1936) "Pickup on Noon Street" (1936; originally published as "Noon Street Nemesis") "Mandarin's Jade" (1937) "Try the Girl" (1937) "Bay City Blues" (1938) "The King in Yellow" (1938) "Red Wind" (1938) "The Lady in the Lake" (1939) "Pearls Are a Nuisance" (1939) "Trouble is My Business" (1939) "No Crime in the Mountains" (1941) "The Pencil" (1961; originally published as "Marlowe Takes on the Syndicate")

Non-detective short stories

"I'll Be Waiting" (1939) "The Bronze Door" (1939) "Professor Bingo's Snuff" (1951) "English Summer" (1976; published posthumously)

Note: "I'll Be Waiting", "The Bronze Door" and "Professor Bingo's Snuff" all feature unnatural deaths and investigators (a hotel detective, Scotland Yard and California local police, respectively), but the emphasis is not on the investigation of the deaths.

Non-fiction

Writers in Hollywood (The Atlantic Monthly, December 1944) The simple art of murder (The Atlantic Monthly, November 1945) Oscar Night in Hollywood (The Atlantic Monthly, March 1948) Ten percent of your life (The Atlantic Monthly, February 1952)

Famous quotes

"Down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid. - In a letter to his editor regarding a proofreader who had changed Chandler's split infinitives

Cultural references

The British rockers Robyn Hitchcock & The Egyptians released a song called "Raymond Chandler Evening" on their 1986 album Element of Light. In the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode "Field of Fire", Odo and Miles O'Brien admit to being fans of Chandler and his novels. In an episode of the American sitcom "Friends," ("The One With Rachel's Dress"), the character Chandler mentions Raymond Chandler in response to Joey asking if there were any famous Chandlers. Joey, in response, believes that Chandler made the name up. In Jim Carroll's song "Three Sisters", the lyrics include the phrase "But she just wants to lay in bed all night reading Raymond Chandler." Parker based many of the characteristics of his detective, Spenser, on the Chandler tradion, to the degree that Spenser was described as born in Laramie, Wyoming, the same town in which Chandler was said to have been conceived. in English literature, and his doctoral thesis was about Chandler's writing.

Trivia

Raymond Chandler was notorious for his intense dislike of Alfred Hitchcock, whom he often referred to as "that fat bastard" (typically within hearing distance of Hitchcock.)