Chandler, Raymond

The Big Sleep. New York: Knopf, 1939.



8vo (7 1/2 x 5 in;190 x 130 mm). Publisher's orange cloth stamped in blue in illustrated dust-jacket; trace of light tanning to front gutter, front fold rubbed, jacket spine a little faded with some chipping at ends, ship at lower right of front panel, rear panel with some intermittent soiling.

Second printing. Bruccoli A.1.1b; Haycraft Queen Cornerstone.

MacShane The Life of Raymond Chandler. 1976

trace of light tanning to front gutter, front fold rubbed, jacket spine a little faded with some chipping at ends, ship at lower right of front panel, rear panel with some intermittent soiling.
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.
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Raymond Chandler's personal copy of his first novel, the introduction of Philip Marlowe and a cornerstone of detective fiction.

"For me / without my compliments / Raymond Chandler / Riverside Feb 1939"

The Big Sleep  was written over three months in the summer of 1938 in a Santa Monica apartment. In its writing a 51 year-old Chandler put to use what he had seen through decades in Los Angeles, learned from pulp stories and the drive of Hammett, but he was also after much more than the usual detective story, believing most to be badly written, "The main problem ... is that the people who write them are bad writers."  He sought to change that.  "My story ... happens to be more interested in people than in plot, to try and stand on its on two legs as a novel with the mystery a few drops of tabasco in the oyster." (McShane, pp.71-73)

Remarkably Chandler achieved what he was after with this first effort. Ross MacDonald, Chandler's California successor, summed up it up thus, "Chandler wrote like a slumming angel and invested the sun-blinded streets of Los Angeles with a romantic presence."