Raymond Chandler

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Lore & Background

Chandler was born in Chicago in 1888 and spent his early years in Plattsmouth, Nebraska. His father, a civil engineer and alcoholic, abandoned the family in the early 1890s. In 1900, his mother took him to England, where he was classically educated at Dulwich College, London. He did not attend university, instead spending time in Paris and Munich improving his foreign language skills. After a brief civil service career and work as a journalist, he returned to America in 1912, settling in Los Angeles by 1913. He enlisted in the Canadian Expeditionary Force in 1917, saw combat in France, and was undergoing flight training when the war ended. After the war, he began a love affair with Cissy Pascal, a married woman 18 years his senior; they married in 1924 after his mother's death. He worked as a bookkeeper and auditor, rising to vice president of the Dabney Oil Syndicate, but was dismissed in 1932 due to alcoholism, absenteeism, and other issues. In straitened financial circumstances during the Great Depression, Chandler turned to writing. He taught himself to write pulp fiction by analyzing and imitating a novelette by Erle Stanley Gardner. His first professional work, 'Blackmailers Don't Shoot,' was published in Black Mask in 1933. His first novel, The Big Sleep, featuring detective Philip Marlowe, was published in 1939. He 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 more than once.

Reader's Guide

Raymond Chandler had an immense stylistic influence on American popular literature. He is a founder of the hardboiled school of detective fiction, alongside Dashiell Hammett, James M. Cain, and other Black Mask writers. His protagonist Philip Marlowe, like Hammett's Sam Spade, is considered by some to be synonymous with 'private detective.' Both were played in films by Humphrey Bogart, whom many consider the quintessential Marlowe. Chandler's novels have been highly regarded: The Big Sleep placed second on the Crime Writers' Association poll of the 100 best crime novels, and Farewell, My Lovely, The Lady in the Lake, and The Long Goodbye also made the list. The Long Goodbye was praised as 'arguably the first book since Hammett's The Glass Key ... to qualify as a serious and significant mainstream novel that just happened to possess elements of mystery.' Chandler was also a perceptive critic of detective fiction; his essay 'The Simple Art of Murder' is the canonical essay in the field. In it he wrote that the detective 'must be the best man in his world and a good enough man for any world.' Robert B. Parker wrote that with Marlowe, 'Chandler seems to have created the culminating American hero: wised up, hopeful, thoughtful, adventurous, sentimental, cynical, and rebellious.'

Did You Know?

• Chandler's first short story, 'Blackmailers Don't Shoot,' took him five months to write and sold for $180.
• He was a first cousin to actor Max Adrian, a founding member of the Royal Shakespeare Company.
• Chandler served in the Canadian Expeditionary Force during World War I and saw combat in the trenches in France.
• His only produced original screenplay was The Blue Dahlia (1946).
• Chandler and Billy Wilder co-wrote the screenplay for Double Indemnity (1944), which was nominated for an Academy Award.

The Late Bloom and the Hardboiled Revolution

Chandler did not discover his literary vocation until his mid-forties. In 1932, the Great Depression cost him his position as an oil company executive, and at forty-four he reinvented himself as a writer of detective fiction. His debut short story, "Blackmailers Don't Shoot," appeared in 1933 in the pulp magazine Black Mask, and his first full-length novel, The Big Sleep, followed in 1939. Over the next two decades he published seven novels, with an eighth left unfinished at his death in 1959 and later completed by Robert B. Parker. Beyond his own body of work, Chandler is recognized as a founding figure of the hardboiled school of detective fiction, standing alongside Dashiell Hammett, James M. Cain, and other Black Mask contributors. His stylistic fingerprints on American popular literature remain immense, reshaping how the genre was conceived and how its heroes were imagined for generations of readers and filmmakers.

Marlowe as the Culminating American Hero

Philip Marlowe, Chandler's recurring protagonist, occupies a place in the literary imagination comparable to Hammett's Sam Spade; both are considered by some to be virtually synonymous with the phrase "private detective." Humphrey Bogart brought both characters to the screen, and many regard him as the definitive Marlowe. Robert B. Parker offered a sweeping assessment: Chandler had crafted "the culminating American hero," a figure who was simultaneously wised-up and hopeful, cynical and sentimental, tough and Romantic. Parker placed Marlowe at the geographical and spiritual edge of the American dream, "at the end of the Far West, where the American dream ran out of room," arguing that no literary hero had ever been more perfectly congruent with his landscape. Chandler, Parker suggested, engaged this hero in the examination of good and evil at exactly the historical moment when the nation's central certainty of good was crumbling.

Critical Authority and Lasting Recognition

Chandler was not merely a practitioner of detective fiction but a thoughtful critic of it. His essay "The Simple Art of Murder" is widely regarded as the canonical statement on the genre, and in it he articulated a vision of the detective as a "complete man and a common man and yet an unusual man," a man of honor defined by instinct rather than declaration. His novels have endured in critical rankings: The Big Sleep placed second on the Crime Writers' Association's poll of the hundred best crime novels, and Farewell, My Lovely, The Lady in the Lake, and The Long Goodbye all made the same list. The Long Goodbye in particular was praised in an anthology of American crime stories as arguably the first book since Hammett's The Glass Key to qualify as a serious mainstream novel that happened to contain elements of mystery. All but Playback have been adapted into films, some more than once.

A Displaced Youth and a Deferred Calling

Chandler's path to writing was long and circuitous. Born in Chicago in 1888, he spent his earliest years in Plattsmouth, Nebraska, before his alcoholic father abandoned the family in the early 1890s. His Irish-born mother relocated him to England in 1900, where he was classically educated at Dulwich College, a school whose alumni included P. G. Wodehouse and C. S. Forester. He passed a civil service examination, took an Admiralty post, and resigned in disgust at its servility. A brief stint as a journalist for the Daily Express proved fruitless. A defining blow came when a young man named Richard Barham Middleton, whom Chandler considered far more talented, committed suicide in Antwerp; the incident convinced the young Chandler that a literary career was out of reach. He later served in World War I with the Canadian Expeditionary Force, saw trench combat in France, and was hospitalized twice with Spanish flu before the war ended.