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Raymond Chandler: Later Novels and Other Writings

Edited by Frank MacShane

“These additions to the venerable [Library of America] series make official what mystery fans have always known: Raymond Chandler is one of the gods of American literature. Following the trail blazed by Dashiell Hammett, Chandler created Philip Marlowe and set the standard against which all private detective fiction is measured.” — Library Journal

Overview
Table of Contents

Overview

The Moviegoer L.A. story: A dark, seductive tale of lust and murder in Double Indemnity
January 11, 2017

Buy both Chandler volumes in a boxed set and save $35.

With humor, along with an unerring sense of dialogue and the telling details of dress and behavior, Raymond Chandler created a distinctive fictional universe out of the dark side of sunlit Los Angeles. In the process, he transformed both crime writing and the American language.

Written during the war, The Lady in the Lake (1943) takes Philip Marlowe out of the seamy L.A. streets to the deceptive tranquility of the surrounding mountains, as the search for a businessman’s missing wife expands into an elegy of loneliness and loss. The darker tone typical of Chandler’s later fiction is evident in The Little Sister (1949), in which an ambitious starlet, a blackmailer, and a seemingly naïve young woman from Manhattan, Kansas, are the key players in a plot that provides fuel for a bitter indictment of Hollywood and Chandler’s most savage portrayal of his adopted city.

The Long Goodbye (1953), his most ambitious and self-revealing novel, uncovers a more anguished resonance in the Marlowe character, in a plot that hinges on the betrayal of friendship and the compromises of middle age. Playback (1958), written originally as a screenplay, is Chandler’s seventh and last novel.

A special feature of this volume is Chandler’s long-unavailable screenplay for the film noir classic, Double Indemnity (1944), adapted from James M. Cain’s novel. Written with director Billy Wilder, it is one of the best screenplays in American cinema, masterful in construction and dialogue. Supplementing the volume, and providing a more personal glimpse of Chandler’s personality, is a selection of letters and essays—including “The Simple Art of Murder,” in which Chandler muses on his pulp roots and on the special qualities of his hero and style.

Frank MacShane (1927–1999), volume editor, was author of The Life of Raymond Chandler and Raymond Chandler: A Bibliography and editor of The Letters of Raymond Chandler and The Notebooks of Raymond Chandler.

This Library of America series edition is printed on acid-free paper and features Smyth-sewn binding, a full cloth cover, and a ribbon marker.

Raymond Chandler: Later Novels & Other Writings is kept in print by a gift from the Tebil Foundation to the Guardians of American Letters Fund.
Table of Contents

The Lady in the Lake

The Little Sister

The Long Goodbye

Playback

Double Indemnity

Selected Essays
The Simple Art of Murder
Writers in Hollywood
Twelve Notes on the Mystery Story
Notes on English and American Style
Introduction to The Simple Art of Murder

Selected Letters

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ISBN: 978-1-88301108-6 1076 pages

LOA books are distributed worldwide by Penguin Random House

N° 80 Library of America Series

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