Selected Letters of Dashiell Hammett by Dashiell Hammett

Selected Letters of Dashiell Hammett by Dashiell Hammett

This is a selection from the letters of Dashiell Hammett, the American writer of crime fiction. Here is Hammett the family man, distant but devoted; Hammett the student of politics, scanning the headlines from a Marxist perspective; and Hammett the lover of Lillian Hellman, delighting in her style, humour, accomplishments, but maintaining his independence. Celebrity, soldier, activist, survivor - these letters show how Hammett was each of these in turn, but was always, above all, a writer.

Dashiell Samuel Hammett was born in St. Mary's County, Maryland. He grew up in Philadelphia and Baltimore. Hammett left school at the age of fourteen and held several kinds of jobs thereafter--messenger boy, newsboy, clerk, operator, and stevedore, finally becoming an operative for Pinkerton's Detective Agency. Sleuthing suited young Hammett, but World War I intervened, interrupting his work and injuring his health. When Sergeant Hammett was discharged from the last of several hospitals, he resumed detective work. He soon turned to writing, and in the late 1920s Hammett became the unquestioned master of detective-story fiction in America. In The Maltese Falcon (1930) he first introduced his famous private eye, Sam Spade. The Thin Man (1932) offered another immortal sleuth, Nick Charles. Red Harvest (1929), The Dain Curse (1929), and The Glass Key (1931) are among his most successful novels. During World War II, Hammett again served as sergeant in the Army, this time for more than two years, most of which he spent in the Aleutians. Hammett's later life was marked in part by ill health, alcoholism, a period of imprisonment related to his alleged membership in the Communist Party, and by his long-time companion, the author Lillian Hellman, with whom he had a very volatile relationship. His attempt at autobiographical fiction survives in the story Tulip, which is contained in the posthumous collection The Big Knockover (1966, edited by Lillian Hellman). Another volume of his stories, The Continental Op (1974, edited by Stephen Marcus), introduced the final Hammett character: the Op, a nameless detective (or operative) who displays little of his personality, making him a classic tough guy in the hard-boiled mold--a bit like Hammett himself.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781582430812
ISBN 10	1582430810
Title	Selected Letters of Dashiell Hammett
Author	Dashiell Hammett
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Hardback
Publisher	Counterpoint
Year published	2001-05-01
Number of pages	672
Prizes	Short-listed for Edgar Allan Poe Awards (Critical/Biographical) 2002
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.