Mario wrote:
"Didn't [Chandler] lift that metaphor [the big sleep] from
another writer? I have a vague memory of a quote (from
Blake?)."
Quite possibly, but he thought different. From a letter
expressing reservations about a book by Eric Partridge (who
compiled books about slang), in Raymond Chandler Speaking
(pp. 88-89):
"Throughout his play The Iceman Cometh, Eugene O'Neill used
'the big sleep' as a synonym for death. He used it, so far as
one can tell from the context, as a matter of course,
apparently in the belief that it was an accepted underworld
expression. If so, I'd like to see whence it comes, as I
invented the expression. It is qute possible I reinvented it,
but I never saw it in print before I used it, and until I get
the evidence I shall continue to believe that O'Neill took it
from me, directly or indirectly, and thought I was using a
standard term."
It's actually a pretty interesting letter overall about the
difference between self-conscious, writerly slang (including
his own) and real slang, which Chandler felt had a "hard
simplicity."
Mark
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