more photos (1)

Raymond Chandler’s Followers (5,732)

Add New
Videos

2 comments

Raymond Chandler

Born

in Chicago, Illinois, The United States

July 23, 1888

Died

March 26, 1959

Genre

Hard Boiled, Mystery, Thriller

edit data

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

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

Chandler had an immense stylistic influence on American popular literature. He is a founder of the hardboiled school of detective fiction, along with Dashiell Hammett, James M. Cain and other Black Mask writers. The protagonist of his novels, 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 to be the quintessential Marlowe.

The Big Sleep placed second on the Crime Writers Association poll of the 100 best crime novels; Farewell, My Lovely (1940), The Lady in the Lake (1943) and The Long Goodbye (1953) also made the list. The latter novel was praised in an anthology of American crime stories as "arguably the first book since Hammett's The Glass Key, published more than twenty years earlier, to qualify as a serious and significant mainstream novel that just happened to possess elements of mystery". Chandler was also a perceptive critic of detective fiction; his "The Simple Art of Murder" is the canonical essay in the field. In it he wrote: "Down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid. The detective must be a complete man and a common man and yet an unusual man. He must be, to use a rather weathered phrase, a man of honor—by instinct, by inevitability, without thought of it, and certainly without saying it. He must be the best man in his world and a good enough man for any world."
Parker wrote that, with Marlowe, "Chandler seems to have created the culminating American hero: wised up, hopeful, thoughtful, adventurous, sentimental, cynical and rebellious—an innocent who knows better, a Romantic who is tough enough to sustain Romanticism in a world that has seen the eternal footman hold its coat and snicker. Living at the end of the Far West, where the American dream ran out of room, no hero has ever been more congruent with his landscape. Chandler had the right hero in the right place, and engaged him in the consideration of good and evil at precisely the time when our central certainty of good no longer held." ...more

Combine Editions
Raymond Chandler’s books

Average rating: 4.01 · 393,468 ratings · 23,628 reviews · 451 distinct works • Similar authors

	The Big Sleep (Philip Marlowe, #1) 3.94 avg rating — 170,790 ratings — published 1939 — 532 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Long Goodbye (Philip Marlowe, #6) 4.19 avg rating — 47,577 ratings — published 1953 — 457 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Farewell, My Lovely (Philip Marlowe, #2) 4.09 avg rating — 43,487 ratings — published 1940 — 451 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Lady in the Lake (Philip Marlowe, #4) 4.06 avg rating — 28,647 ratings — published 1943 — 378 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The High Window (Philip Marlowe, #3) 4.04 avg rating — 25,952 ratings — published 1942 — 281 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Little Sister (Philip Marlowe, #5) 3.98 avg rating — 19,230 ratings — published 1949 — 11 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Trouble Is My Business (Philip Marlowe, #8) 4.06 avg rating — 13,152 ratings — published 1950 — 295 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Playback (Philip Marlowe, #7) 3.79 avg rating — 11,252 ratings — published 1958 — 35 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Simple Art of Murder 4.13 avg rating — 6,317 ratings — published 1944 — 185 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Poodle Springs by Raymond Chandler, Robert B. Parker 3.61 avg rating — 5,369 ratings — published 1989 — 121 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

More books by Raymond Chandler…

Series by Raymond Chandler

Philip Marlowe (8 books)
by

Raymond Chandler

4.01 avg rating — 367,233 ratings

Veteran book nerds will be familiar with this dilemma: You’re in the mood for a certain kind of book, but traditional genre and subgenre labels...

Polls

Who do you think was the most influential of the Pulp Magazine Era authors?

Raymond Chandler

13 votes, 19.1%

Robert E. Howard

12 votes, 17.6%

H. P. Lovecraft

12 votes, 17.6%

Dashiell Hammett

10 votes, 14.7%

Edgar Rice Burroughs

10 votes, 14.7%

Lester Dent

4 votes, 5.9%

Walter Gibson

2 votes, 2.9%

Other

2 votes, 2.9%

Erle Stanley Gardner

1 vote, 1.5%

Stanley G. Weinbaum

1 vote, 1.5%

Talbot Mundy

1 vote, 1.5%

Max Brand

0 votes, 0.0%

C. L. Moore

0 votes, 0.0%

A. Merritt

0 votes, 0.0%

E. E. Smith

0 votes, 0.0%

Arthur O. Friel

0 votes, 0.0%

68 total votes

7 comments

More...

Topics Mentioning This Author

topics	posts	views	last activity
Pulp Magazine Aut...: Favorite pulp author(s)	21	392	Dec 25, 2008 10:27AM
Mystery/Thriller ...: Carol's March 2009 reads	9	68	Apr 03, 2009 09:54AM
The Seasonal Read...: This Year Labor Day Falls On September 7th	18	178	Aug 22, 2009 06:04PM
The Book Challenge: laurea's challenge 2009	4	192	Oct 11, 2009 02:28PM
The Next Best Boo...: Jason's 2009 Good (and not so good) Reads	26	593	Nov 14, 2009 06:03PM
Witches, Weres, a...: Remy Chandler	18	50	Apr 30, 2010 01:14PM
SciFi and Fantasy...: July Sci-Fi Theme - Future Noir	36	372	Jun 25, 2010 03:03PM

More…