SELECTED LETTERS OF DASHIELL HAMMETT Richard Layman, editor
Julie M. Rivett, associate editor Foreword by Josephine
Hammett Marshall
"Got home to find a stack of letters from the Black Mask, one
from Shaw telling me how good I am, one from Cody telling me
the same thing . . . Overwhelmed by this applesauce I'm
writing them to shoot me some more dough and I'll do them
some more shots-in-the-dark. Merry Christmas!--D." To his
wife (June 1, 1927)
"I am returning your invoice for excess corrections on The
Glass Key. These corrections were made necessary by someone
in your editorial department who, with limited amounts of
time, energy, and red ink at his disposal, simply edited the
Jesus out of my MS . . . If you'll take a look at the
[original], you'll see you're lucky I haven't billed you for
the trouble I was put to unediting it. Sincerely yours,
Dashiell Hammett." To his publishers (December 20,
1930)
"I have been looking through a copy of Le Falcon de Malte and
have decided that what I had last night was either a mouille
songe or a humide reve. When I can take time from reading my
own opera I am rereading Don Quixote . . . I'll get around to
everything if I live long enough. I missed a lot of things in
that San Francisco Public Library. Tu es un ange, Dash" To
Lillian Hellman (December 30, 1936)
A literary event: the letters, both private and professional,
of Dashiell Hammett, creator of Sam Spade and father of the
hardboiled crime novel.
In his five great crime novels, all of them written in a
magnificent burst of creativity between 1927 and 1933,
Dashiell Hammett gave America a cast of immortal
characters-Sam Spade, the Continental Op, and Nick and Nora
Charles, mold-breaking, red-blooded alternatives to Sherlock
Holmes and Lord Peter Wimsey. In the words of Raymond
Chandler, Hammett "gave murder back to the kind of people who
commit it for reasons, not just to provide a corpse; and with
the means at hand, not with hand-wrought dueling
pistols."
A popular writer from the start, he aspired to a higher goal.
As he was working on his classic The Maltese Falcon, he wrote
a letter to his publisher about the potential of the
detective-story form: "Someday somebody's going to make
'literature' out of it . . . and I'm selfish enough to have
my hopes."
Though Hammett's work is admired by millions, the man himself
has always been an enigma. Now, at last, comes a volume of
his letters, revealing not only the private man but also the
hard-working-and hard-living-professional. Yes, he was part
cynical tough guy, like Sam Spade; he was part sophisticated
inebriate, like Nick Charles. But the character of Dashiell
Hammett was too complex to be easily categorized. His letters
to his family, lovers, and colleagues show his personal
warmth, his political commitment, his wide-ranging
intellectual curiosity. With wit, intelligence, and style,
these letters further confirm Hammett's extraordinary talent
as writer and observer.
Dashiell Hammett (1894-1961) is the author of Red Harvest,
The Dain Curse, The Maltese Falcon, The Glass Key, and The
Thin Man.
Richard Layman is the author of four books on Dashiell
Hammett, including Shadow Man: The Life of Dashiell Hammett.
He is vice president of Bruccoli Clark Layman, a publisher of
reference works.
Julie M. Rivett is the granddaughter of Dashiell Hammett, and
Josephine Hammett Marshall his daughter.
Selected Letters of Dashiell Hammett Publication date: March
2001 ISBN: 1-58243-081-0 Biography
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