Lot 152
  • 152

Chandler, Raymond

Estimate
3,000 - 5,000 GBP
bidding is closed

Description

  • Chandler, Raymond
  • Six typed letters, three signed and three with typed signatures, to Hamish ("Jamie") Hamilton
  • ink on paper
discussing his Hollywood work including his disappointment with The Blue Dahlia and hopes for The Big Sleep ("...you will realise what can be done with this sort of story by a director with the gift of atmosphere and the requisite touch of hidden sadism...") with praise for Bogart and a full description of an unshot scene planned by Chandler and Hawks, providing fascinating appraisals of writers including Somerset Maugham ("...He has no magic and very little gusto ... His plots are cool and deadly and his timing is absolutely flawless..."), Erle Gardner, and Eugene O'Neill, providing explanations of various underworld terms wrongly defined in a slang dictionary, and in the final letter providing a detailed and personal outline of his life, also with publishing matters and passing comments on contemporary events including Armistice Day in California ("...Big parade of troops and marines and sailors, none of whom have any idea what the first war was like. It was a damn sight worse than they think..."), 17 pages, 4to, 6520 Drexel Avenue, LA, and 6005 Camino de la Costa, La Jolla, California, 30 May 1946 to 10 November 1950, occasional markings and notes in ink and pencil by Hamish Hamilton, punch holes

Literature

Selected Letters of Raymond Chandler, ed. F. MacShane (1981), pp.75-76, 161-63, 216-18, 235-38 (selections only)

Condition

Condition is described in the main body of the catalogue, where appropriate.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

Catalogue Note

"...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 judge 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, because I invented the expression..."

Hamish Hamilton, like Chandler, had strong links on both sides of the Atlantic and maintained an exceptional list of American writers that ranged from Salinger to Galbraith. He was Chandler's London publisher throughout his career. The two men were long-standing correspondents and these lively letters show Chandler happy to give his views on subjects from sex in literature to his own achievements as a writer:

"...I am supposed to be a hard-boiled writer, but that means nothing. It is merely a matter of projection. Personally, I am sensitive and even diffident ... As a mystery writer, I think I am a bit of an anomaly, since most mystery writers of the American school are only semi-literate; and I am not only literate but intellectual, much as I dislike the term. It would seem that a classical education might be rather a poor basis for writing novels in a hard-boiled vernacular. I happen to think otherwise. A classical education saves you from being fooled by pretentiousness, which is what most current fiction is too full of..."

Tom Maschler
This lot is from the personal archive of Tom Maschler (b.1933), one of the leading figures of modern British publishing and identified by the Bookseller as one of the ten most influential figures in publishing of the twentieth century. As editorial director at Jonathan Cape from 1960, he was responsible for shaping the literary scene through the publication of authors including Joseph Heller, John Fowles, Doris Lessing, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and Philip Roth, as well as many of the best English novelists to emerge in the 70s – Amis, Barnes, Chatwin, McEwan, Rushdie. Under his leadership Cape published some 15 Nobel laureates, and his forays into children’s books included bringing together Roald Dahl and Quentin Blake. The ten lots from his collection (lots 188-197) give significant insights into his varied career and literary interests, from Declaration, the collection of essays that made his name, to correspondence with two very different writers with whom he developed a particular rapport – John Fowles and Doris Lessing. They also include a small number of letters by an earlier generation of authors (Raymond Chandler and Malcolm Lowry) that were acquired by Maschler.