Re: RARA-AVIS: New Hammett?


Ckottos Nikolai (greenman@cyberport.com)
Wed, 23 Jun 1999 23:43:40 -0700


Mark Sullivan wrote:
>
> The Mercury Mystery edition of A Man Named Thin lists a bibliography of
> the short story collections up to that point:
>
> The Adventures of Sam Spade, 1944 (later partially reprinted as A Man
> Called Spade and Other Stories and fully reprinted as They Can Only Hang
> You Once and Other Stories):

(snipped)

Mark,

You raise a good point, which I should have included: there are actually other Sam Spade stories beyond _The Maltese Falcon_. I don't think they have been reprinted in recent memory; if they have, I've missed them. I can't remember where I had heard that it was Hellman who nixed the republication of some early stories, put the existence of the Sam Spade stories would seem to confirm it.

BTW, the last two stories in _Hammet Homicides_ (Two Sharp Knives and Ruffian's Wife) feature protagonists other than the Op: Chief of Police Anderson and Guy Tharp. I don't know if they appear elsewhere. Anyway, it's obvious that there are a number of stories in those old Dell editions that are fifty years or more out of print, and I can't imagine that they collected all his short fiction even then. What we need is a Library of America edition of Hammett's works (IMHO, he should have come before Chandler, though I guess I should be happy they're publishing hard-boiled/noir writers at all.), but that's another matter.

-Ckottos Nikolai

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