The Notebooks of Raymond Chandler

Over the course of two prolific decades--from the time of his humble beginnings as a pulp writer for The Black Mask through the creation of his celebrated noir masterworks The Big Sleep and Farewell, My Lovely to the Hollywood years of the 1940s--the inimitable Raymond Chandler recorded in a series of private notebooks his thoughts, emotions, anecdotes, and germinating ideas that would later find their way into his classic crime novels. Filled with both public and personal writings, The Notebooks of Raymond Chandler offers readers a fascinating and intimate view of the writer at work. Here, in his own words, is Chandler on such "Marlowesque" topics as pickpocket lingo and San Quentin jailhouse slang, a "Note on the Tommy Gun" and "Craps," as well as essays on Hollywood, the mystery genre, British versus American writing, and a brilliantly wicked and witty parody of Ernest Hemingway. Included also is the short story "English Summer: A Gothic Romance," which Chandler considered a major turning point in his career.