Marc,
One correction re the portion of your dissertation that you
reproduce below:
> Chandler's third story was "Finger Man,"
published
> in Black Mask in October
> of 1934. The protagonist in the tale is
unnamed,
> though he was "identified"
> as Philip Marlowe in 1950's The Simple Art
of
> Murder. Leaving the detective
> nameless might reflect yet another literary debt
to
> Dashiell Hammett, who
> had already achieved great success with his
own
> unnamed detective (dubbed
> "the Continental Op").
Before he was identified as Marlowe, the unnamed hero of
"Finger Man" was identified as Carmady. In
"Goldfish," the first story in which Chandler specifically
identifies his 1st-person private eye as
"Carmady," the hero recalls the time he and cop buddy Bernie
Ohls shot it out with hit man Poke Andrews in
"Finger Man." The obvious conclusion is that the nameless
hero of "Finger Man" (and by extension, the nameless hero of
its sequels, "Killer in the Rain" and
"The Man Who Liked Dogs") is Carmady, now finally given a
name.
When Chandler jumped ship from BLACK MASK to DIME DETECTIVE,
he brought his character with him, but changed the name to
"John Dalmas" to accomodate his new editors who wanted him to
create a wholly new series character for their
magazine.
Years later, when Chandler collected those of his pulp
stories he felt were worthy of preservation in THE SIMPLE ART
OF MURDER, it was not only the nameless hero of "Finger Man"
who was identified as Marlowe. Carmady from "Goldfish" and
Dalmas from "Red Wind" and
"Trouble Is My Business" also became Marlowe for hardback
book publication.
JIM DOHERTY
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