Raymond Chandler Speaking

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Overview

Tough-minded and typically idiosyncratic, here is Chandler on Chandler, the mystery novel, writing, Hollywood, TV, publishing, cats, and famous crimes. This skillfully edited selection of letters, articles, and notes also includes the short story "A Couple of Writers" and the first chapters of Chandler's last Philip Marlowe novel, The Poodle Springs Story, left unfinished at his death. Paul Skenazy has provided a new introduction for this edition as well as a new selected ...

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Overview

Tough-minded and typically idiosyncratic, here is Chandler on Chandler, the mystery novel, writing, Hollywood, TV, publishing, cats, and famous crimes. This skillfully edited selection of letters, articles, and notes also includes the short story "A Couple of Writers" and the first chapters of Chandler's last Philip Marlowe novel, The Poodle Springs Story, left unfinished at his death. Paul Skenazy has provided a new introduction for this edition as well as a new selected bibliography.

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Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly
Hiney, a journalist for the Spectator and the London Observer, offers a prismatic view into the life of novelist Raymond Thornton Chandler (1888-1959). In addition to using previously published material by and about Chandler from both familiar and little-known sources, Hiney peered into university archives for a close inspection of Chandler's correspondence and notebooks. Hiney traces the writer's nomadic childhood from pre-Mafia Chicago to pre-telephone Nebraska, from Quaker Ireland and Edwardian England to his education south of London at Dulwich College and his 1913 arrival in the "mean streets" of Los Angeles, the later setting for his crime fiction. As recluse, oil executive, poet, screenwriter and gentlemen charmer, Chandler was "beyond eccentric" to those who came in contact with him. Living at over 100 addresses, he sustained no long friendships, and was "variously rich, poor, drunk, teetotal, sacked, married and suicidal." Not until age 50 did he move from pulps to Alfred Knopf, where the 1939 debut of streetwise Philip Marlowe in The Big Sleep attracted some notice in the press. Hiney contrasts critical dismissals with later acclaim, noting that the current popularity of "Chandleresque writers" (James Ellroy, Elmore Leonard) and filmmakers (Quentin Tarantino) has triggered a reappraisal of hardboiled roots. No rough edges have been filed off for this revealing, well-written biography, and Hiney's fast-paced prose, punctuated with the voices of those who knew him well, often evoke edgy atmospherics and dark moods reminiscent of Chandler's own fiction. (May) FYI: In April, University of California will release Raymond Chandler Speaking, a collection of the writer's letters, articles and notes on publishing, cats, crime and more edited by Dorothy Gardiner and Kathrine Sorley Walker ($12.95 paper, 275p ISBN 0-520-20835-8)
Library Journal
There has been a remarkable resurgence of interest in Chandler in recent years. He is now included in the prestigious Library of America series Classic Returns, LJ 9/15/95, and the first major biography on him in 20 years was recently published LJ 4/1/97. This 1962 volume collects a wide number of Chandler's personal letters from 1950 to 1959, divided by subjecte.g., Chandler on mystery, on publishingplus the opening chapters of The Poodle Springs Story, a Philip Marlowe novel left unfinished at the time of Chandler's death and which was ultimately completed by Robert B. Parker LJ 7/89. His letters reveal him to be a witty yet softspoken and scholarly mannot at all what you'd expect of a hard-boiled mystery author. Essential for all Chandler hounds.
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Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9780520208353
  • Publisher: University of California Press
  • Publication date: 4/30/1997
  • Edition description: REPRINT
  • Pages: 296
  • Sales rank: 960,073
  • Product dimensions: 5.50 (w) x 8.50 (h) x 0.67 (d)

Meet the Author

Raymond Chandler

Raymond Chandler (1888-1959) was born in Chicago but raised in London, returning to the U.S. to live in California in 1919. His first story, "Blackmailers Don't Shoot," was published in 1933 and The Big Sleep, his first novel, in 1939.Paul Skenazy is the author of The New Wild West: The Urban Mysteries of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler and he is Professor of American Literature at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Biography

Raymond Thornton Chandler (1888 - 1959) was the master practitioner of American hard-boiled crime fiction. Although he was born in Chicago, Chandler spent most of his boyhood and youth in England where he attended Dulwich College and later worked as a freelance journalist for The Westminster Gazette and The Spectator. During World War I, Chandler served in France with the First Division of the Canadian Expeditionary Force, transferring later to the Royal Flying Corps (R. A. F.). In 1919 he returned to the United States, settling in California, where he eventually became director of a number of independent oil companies. The Depression put an end to his career, and in 1933, at the age of forty-five, he turned to writing fiction, publishing his first stories in Black Mask. Chandler's detective stories often starred the brash but honorable Philip Marlowe (introduced in 1939 in his first novel, The Big Sleep) and were noted for their literate presentation and dead-on critical eye. Never a prolific writer, Chandler published only one collection of stories and seven novels in his lifetime. Some of Chandler's novels, like The Big Sleep, were made into classic movies which helped define the film noir style. In the last year of his life he was elected president of the Mystery Writers of America. He died in La Jolla, California on March 26, 1959.

Author biography courtesy of Random House, Inc.

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    1. Also Known As:
      Raymond Thornton Chandler
    1. Date of Birth:
      July 23, 1888
    2. Place of Birth:
      Chicago Illinois
    1. Date of Death:
      March 26, 1959
    2. Place of Death:
      La Jolla, California

Table of Contents

Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction 1
Foreword 9
Chronology 12
1 Chandler on Chandler 17
2 Chandler on the Mystery Novel 45
3 Chandler on the Craft of Writing 71
4 A Couple of Writers 97
5 Chandler on the Film World and Television 113
6 Chandler on Publishing 145
7 Chandler on Cats 175
8 Chandler on Famous Crimes 185
9 Chandler on His Novels, Short Stories and Philip Marlowe 205
10 The Poodle Springs Story 251
Bibliography 265
Index 269
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