RARA-AVIS: Collecting Hammett's short stories

From: William Denton ( buff@pobox.com)
Date: 23 Sep 2002


Earlier this year I compared Hammett's bibliography to the contents in the two recent collections of his short stories, and some rare birds filled in the blanks. Here's the summary. If you can correct something, or you know where to find a story that seems to be uncollected, please let me know. (I just found a copy of THE ADVENTURES OF SAM SPADE AND OTHER STORIES for a dollar so I'm quite happy.)

The Lazy Person's Guide to a Complete Hammett Short Story Collection:

Two recent collections will give you most of them, and all the best and most popular ones: CRIME STORIES AND OTHER WRITINGS and NIGHTMARE TOWN. After that you'll mostly have to go to collections from the 1940s and 1950s.

CRIME STORIES AND OTHER WRITINGS (Library of America, 2001):
  "Arson Plus" (1923)
  "The Assistant Murderer" (1926)
  "The Big Knockover" (1927)
  "The Creeping Siamese" (1926)
  "Crooked Souls" (a.k.a. "The Gatewood Caper") (1923)
  "Dead Yellow Women" (1925)
  "The Farewell Murder" (1930)
  "Fly Paper" (1929)
  "The Girl with Silver Eyes" (1924)
  "The Golden Horseshoe" (1924)
  "The Gutting of Couffignal" (1925)
  "The House in Turk Street" (1924)
  "The Main Death" (1927)
  "Nightmare Town" (1924)
  "The Scorched Face" (1925)
  "Slippery Fingers" (1923)
  "The Tenth Clew" (1924)
  "The Thin Man" (first draft, written 1930)
  "This King Business" (1928)
  "Two Sharp Knives" (1934)
  "The Whosis Kid" (1925)
  "Woman in the Dark" (1933)
  "Women, Politics and Murder" (a.k.a. "Death on Pine Street") (1924)
  "Zigzags of Treachery" (1924)

NIGHTMARE TOWN (Knopf, 1999) (stories not already in CRIME STORIES only)
  "Afraid of a Gun" (1924)
  "Bodies Piled Up" (a.k.a. "House Dick") (1923)
  "His Brother's Keeper" (1934)
  "The Man Who Killed Dan Odams" (1924)
  "A Man Called Spade" (1932)
  "A Man Named Thin" (1961)
  "Mike, Alec or Rufus?" (a.k.a. "Tom, Dick or Harry") (1925)
  "Night Shots" (1924)
  "One Hour" (1924)
  "Ruffian's Wife" (1925)
  "The Second-Story Angel" (1923)
  "They Can Only Hang You Once (1932)
  "Too Many Have Lived" (1932)
  "Who Killed Bob Teal?" (1924)

THE BIG KNOCKOVER (1966) includes:
  "Tulip"

HARDBOILED MYSTERY WRITERS: RAYMOND CHANDLER, DASHIELL HAMMETT, ROSS MACDONALD (1989) includes (besides lots of articles, reviews, Hammett's testimony before the McCarthy committee, and more):
  "The Advertising Man Writes a Love Letter" (1927)
  "Another Perfect Crime" (1925)

The following are all out of print. You can get them through interlibrary loan or at used bookstores.

THE ADVENTURES OF SAM SPADE AND OTHER STORIES (1944, ed. Ellery Queen) includes:
  "The New Racket" (a.k.a. "The Judge Laughed Last") (1924)
  "Night Shade" (a.k.a. "Nightshade") (1933)

THE RETURN OF THE CONTINENTAL OP (1945, ed. Ellery Queen) includes:
  "Death and Company" (1930)

DEAD YELLOW WOMEN (1947, ed. Ellery Queen) includes:
  "The Green Elephant" (1923)
  "Ber-Bulu" (a.k.a. "The Hairy One") (1925)

NIGHTMARE TOWN (1947, ed. Ellery Queen) includes:
  "Albert Pastor at Home" (1933)
  "Corkscrew" (1925)

THE CREEPING SIAMESE (1950, ed. Ellery Queen) includes:
  "The Joke on Eloise Morey" (1923)
  "The Nails in Mr. Cayterer" (1926)

THE WOMAN IN THE DARK (1951, ed. Ellery Queen) includes:
  "It" (a.k.a. "The Black Hat That Wasn't There") (1923)
  "Holiday" (1923)
  "The Vicious Circle" (a.k.a "The Man Who Stood In the Way") (1923)

A MAN NAMED THIN (1962, ed. Ellery Queen) includes:
  "The Barber and His Wife" (1922)
  "The Sardonic Star of Tom Doody" (a.k.a "Wages of Crime") (1923)
  "The Dimple" (a.k.a "In the Morgue") (1923)
  "Laughing Masks" (a.k.a "When Luck's Running Good") (1923)
  "Itchy" (a.k.a. "Itchy the Debonair") (1924)

These stories seem to be uncollected (perhaps with good reason):

  "The Crusader" (1923)
  "Diamond Wager" (1929)
  "Ester Entertains" (1924)
  "First Aide to Murder" (?)
  "Immortality" (1922)
  "The Man Who Loved Ugly Women" (1925?)
  "On the Way" (1932)
  "The Parthian Shot" (1922)
  "The Road Home" (1922)
  "A Tale of Two Women" (Saturday Home Magazine, ?)
  "This Little Pig" (1934)

-- 
William Denton : Toronto, Canada : http://www.miskatonic.org/ : Caveat lector.

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