james.doherty@gsa.gov
30 Aug 99 16:40:00 -0400
Re ED's recent post:
" . . . I do recall reading
something a long time ago about a name for
the Op (it might have been an
Ellery Queen introduction to one of the
Dell collections) . . . "
In one of the Queen-edited Op
collections, I forget which one
off-hand, the story "Who Killed
Bob Teal?" is included. This story
was rejected by *Black Mask*,
so Hammett submitted it as a true-crime
article to *True Detective*,
where it first appeared. It was by-lined
as being written "by Dashiell
Hammett of the Continental Detective
Agency" in its *TD* appearance.
Basically all Hammett did to change
the story from a fictional
*Black Mask* submission to a non-fiction
*True Detective* submission was
to add a paragraph at the beginning in
which he explains that "the
name of the characters and city have
different ones than those I
have given them here. Those familiar with
the story know that I have kept
the facts true," or something to that
effect.
In Queen's intro to the story
for that collection, he concludes that,
though the Op has always been
considered a nameless figure, the *True
Detective* byline shows that
the Op was, and always has been, Dashiell
Hammett. He also noted that the
real-life figure on whom Hammett
modeled, to some degree at
least, his famous PI was named Jim Wright.
Wright had been Hammett's
supervisor at the Baltimore office of the
Pinkerton Detective Agency
(which, by the way, was located in an
office building known as the
Continental Building; presumably this was
where Hammett got the name for
his fictional counterpart to the
Pinkertons. That's as close to
naming the Op as any of Hammett's
editors ever got.
When Hammett's *Black Mask*
editor, I think it was Phil Cody before
J.T. Shaw took over, asked
about the character's lack of a name,
Hammett replied that he was
"more or less of a type" and added "I'm
not sure he deserves a name." -
Jim Doherty
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