The Raymond Chandler Papers: Selected Letters and Nonfiction 1909-1959

by Raymond Chandler

Book Overview

The Raymond Chandler Papers brings together the correspondence and other previously uncollected writing of America's undisputed master of crime fiction and creator of the iconic private eye Phillip Marlowe, revealing all aspects of the great artist's powerful personality and broad intellectual curiosity. Featuring a selection of Chandler's previously unpublished early writings -- including a gripping piece about his combat experiences in World War...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0802139469
• ISBN13: 9780802139467
• Release Date: October 2002
• Publisher: Grove Press
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 0.90 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

A real pleasure

Not just for Chandler fans (though anyone who's read Chandler is a fan). Not just for writers (though anyone who writes will be comforted and instructed). The book is a wonderfully keen (and occasionally cranky) observation of America in the 1940s and 50s, with buckshot at Hollywood, politics, crime, critics, corruption, literature and life. Curl up on a snowy weekend with this crackling American voice. Chandler is great company. And if you're really into Chandler, try Frank McShane's biography of him.

Sunbelt Existentialism

Much of The Raymond Chandler Papers: Selected Letters and Nonfiction 1909-1959 is gleaned from Chandler's La Jolla years, when he would dictate his correspondence late into the night. Written with a pitch-perfect ear for the American vernacular and the grammatical fastidiousness of a man born, bred, and classically educated in England, Selected Letters is an omnium gatherum of blunt, bleakly funny bon mots. On California: "There is a touch of the desert about everything in California, and about the minds of the people who live here." "We are so rootless here. I've lived half my life in California and made what use of it I could, but I could leave it forever without a pang." On his fan mail: "...[A]nother letter I had once from a girl in Seattle who said that she was interested in music and sex, and gave me the impression that, if I was pressed for time, I need not even bother to bring my own pyjamas." On himself: "All my best friends I have never seen. To know me in the flesh is to pass on to better things." Written in the dead of night with a Dictaphone and a bottle of gin, Chandler's letters are an inexhaustible fund of insights into the noir aesthetic, the sublime agonies of the writer's life, the American Language (as Mencken called it), and, forever and always, the sunbelt existentialism that shadows the California Dream.

Intelligent, Hilarious, and Sometimes Sad

Raymond Chandler wrote his letters, for the most part, late at night after a day of drinking. The letters provide an insight into the man who created the quintessential fictional PI, Philip Marlowe, and elevated what he called formula writing into a class of literature recognized by his contemporaries as art. The letters range from his laugh-out-loud take on science fiction--"Did you ever read what they call science fiction? It's a scream. It's written like this: I checked out K19 on Adabaran III, and stepped out through the crummaliote hatch..." to the sadness he experienced when his wife of more than thirty years passed away. I enthusiastically recommend this book. Even people who hadn't had the good fortune to read his classic mystery novels will be highly entertained.

So good it'll make a bishop kick in a stained glass window

What a fun collection this is! Another book of letters by another famous author I read recently was embarrassingly boring--it never should have been printed. But Chandler's style and pithy observations make this collection a treat. Though a loner and a lush, he maintained cordial relations with his colleagues, and his comments on the passing scene are keen. From acerbic observations on life in southern California, to wry descriptions of his cat's habits, to sometimes generous and sometimes acerbic appraisals of agents, publishers, and fellow writers, his prose is absolutely sparkling. His coverage of Oscars night in the mid-Forties for The Atlantic magazine is a masterpiece of scorn for the glitterati. Around the same time he accurately dismisses the new medium of television's supposed threat to the book industry. People who tune in to watch "fourth-rate club fighters rub noses on the ropes are not losing any time from book reading." Just as frequently, Chandler comes across as thoughtful and a good friend--not at all Marlowe-ish, though you get the feeling he could be a tough guy if need be. If you read only one book of collected letters of a famous author this year, etc.

Poet Laureate of the Loner

Chandler had probably never seen most of the people with whom he corresponded in his letters, but his opinions on everything from the plight of the writer in Hollywood to the merits of housecats are not only witty and memorable, but also indicate an extremely thoughtful man and first-rate analytical mind. The only problem I had with Hiney's editing is that a bit more could have been explained--although some of the context of each letter is provided, additional information would have been helpful. I believe I would have appreciated Chandler's observations even more had this been the case.