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Generally, the Great Depression was a disastrous phenomenon. However, it was a blessing in disguise for Raymond Chandler as it prompted him to put pen to paper and kick-started something that ultimately segued into an illustrious writing career. For starters, Raymond Chandler was a US man of letters, scenarist, First World War-era soldier, and one-time journalist. The penman, whose legal name was Raymond Thornton Chandler, was born in July 1888 in Chicago upon Illinois.
Order of Philip Marlowe Series
# | Read | Title | Published | Details |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | The Big Sleep | 1939 | Description / Buy | |
2 | Farewell, My Lovely | 1940 | Description / Buy | |
3 | The High Window | 1942 | Description / Buy | |
4 | The Lady in the Lake | 1943 | Description / Buy | |
5 | The Little Sister | 1949 | Description / Buy | |
6 | The Long Goodbye | 1953 | Description / Buy | |
7 | Playback | 1958 | Description / Buy | |
8 | Poodle Springs | 1989 | Description / Buy | |
9 | Perchance to Dream | 1991 | Description / Buy | |
10 | The Black-Eyed Blonde | 2014 | Description / Buy | |
11 | Only to Sleep | 2018 | Description / Buy | |
12 | The Goodbye Coast | 2022 | Description / Buy | |
13 | The Second Murderer | 2023 | Description / Buy |
Order of Philip Marlowe Collections
# | Read | Title | Published | Details |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Trouble is My Business | 1939 | Description / Buy |
Order of Raymond Chandler Screenplays
# | Read | Title | Published | Details |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Double Indemnity | 1944 | Description / Buy | |
2 | The Blue Dahlia | 1976 | Description / Buy |
Order of Raymond Chandler Short Story Collections
# | Read | Title | Published | Details |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Killer in the Rain | 1935 | Description / Buy | |
2 | Five Sinister Characters | 1939 | Description / Buy | |
3 | Pearls are a Nuisance | 1950 | Description / Buy | |
4 | The Simple Art of Murder | 1950 | Description / Buy | |
5 | Pickup on Noon Street | 1957 | Description / Buy | |
6 | Smart-Aleck Kill | 1958 | Description / Buy | |
7 | The Smell of Fear | 1965 | Description / Buy | |
8 | The Midnight Raymond Chandler | 1971 | Description / Buy |
Order of Raymond Chandler Non-Fiction Books
# | Read | Title | Published | Details |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | The Notebooks of Raymond Chandler | 1976 | Description / Buy | |
2 | Selected Letters | 1981 | Description / Buy | |
3 | The World of Raymond Chandler | 2014 | Description / Buy |
Order of Akashic Noir Series
# | Read | Title | Published | Details |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Brooklyn Noir | 2004 | Description / Buy | |
2 | Havana Noir | 2007 | Description / Buy | |
3 | Las Vegas Noir | 2008 | Description / Buy | |
4 | Trinidad Noir | 2008 | Description / Buy | |
5 | Istanbul Noir | 2008 | Description / Buy | |
6 | Paris Noir | 2008 | Description / Buy | |
7 | San Francisco Noir 2 | 2009 | Description / Buy | |
8 | Portland Noir | 2009 | Description / Buy | |
9 | Delhi Noir | 2009 | Description / Buy | |
10 | Mexico City Noir | 2010 | Description / Buy | |
11 | Indian Country Noir | 2010 | Description / Buy | |
12 | Moscow Noir | 2010 | Description / Buy | |
13 | Philadelphia Noir | 2010 | Description / Buy | |
14 | Barcelona Noir | 2011 | Description / Buy | |
15 | St. Petersburg Noir | 2012 | Description / Buy | |
16 | Kansas City Noir | 2012 | Description / Buy | |
17 | Boston Noir 2 | 2012 | Description / Buy | |
18 | Helsinki Noir | 2014 | Description / Buy | |
19 | Tel Aviv Noir | 2014 | Description / Buy | |
20 | Chicago Noir: The Classics | 2015 | Description / Buy | |
21 | Zagreb Noir | 2015 | Description / Buy | |
22 | Buffalo Noir | 2015 | Description / Buy | |
23 | Marseille Noir | 2015 | Description / Buy | |
24 | Beirut Noir | 2015 | Description / Buy | |
25 | Stockholm Noir | 2016 | Description / Buy | |
26 | Rio Noir | 2016 | Description / Buy | |
27 | Brussels Noir | 2016 | Description / Buy | |
28 | San Juan Noir | 2016 | Description / Buy | |
29 | Oakland Noir | 2017 | Description / Buy | |
30 | Montana Noir | 2017 | Description / Buy | |
31 | Buenos Aires Noir | 2017 | Description / Buy | |
32 | São Paulo Noir | 2018 | Description / Buy | |
33 | Hong Kong Noir | 2018 | Description / Buy | |
34 | Houston Noir | 2019 | Description / Buy | |
35 | Milwaukee Noir | 2019 | Description / Buy | |
36 | Nairobi Noir | 2020 | Description / Buy | |
37 | Addis Ababa Noir | 2020 | Description / Buy | |
38 | Belgrade Noir | 2020 | Description / Buy | |
39 | Accra Noir | 2020 | Description / Buy | |
40 | Paris Noir: The Suburbs | 2022 | Description / Buy |
Order of Raymond Chandler Short Stories/Novellas
# | Read | Title | Published | Details |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Goldfish (Short Story) | 1981 | Description / Buy | |
2 | The Man Who Liked Dogs (Short Story) | 1996 | Description / Buy | |
3 | Red Wind | 2009 | Description / Buy |
Raymond Chandler Anthologies
# | Read | Title | Published | Details |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | The Mammoth Book of Private Eye Stories | 1988 | Description / Buy | |
2 | Great Law and Order Stories | 1990 | Description / Buy | |
3 | The Little Book of Horrors: Tiny Tales of Terror | 1992 | Description / Buy | |
4 | The Oxford Book of American Detective Stories | 1996 | Description / Buy | |
5 | The Oxford Book of Detective Stories | 2000 | Description / Buy | |
6 | The Best American Mystery Stories of the Century | 2000 | Description / Buy | |
7 | Writing Los Angeles | 2002 | Description / Buy | |
8 | The Longman Anthology of Detective Fiction | 2004 | Description / Buy | |
9 | Pulp Fiction - The Dames | 2008 | Description / Buy | |
10 | Los Angeles Noir 2 | 2010 | Description / Buy | |
11 | Books to Die For | 2012 | Description / Buy | |
12 | The Movie Book | 2016 | Description / Buy | |
13 | Writers: Their Lives and Works | 2018 | Description / Buy |
The scribbler spent his early childhood in Plattsmouth upon Nebraska and later on his single mother relocated the family to England wherein Chandler schooled at the London-based Dulwich College. Chandler, who passed away in March 1959, died in La Jolla upon California. In the run-up to his death, Chandler presided over Mystery Writers of America. Chandler’s niche was mystery (notably hard-boiled sub-genre) and thriller genres.
To labor the point, circumstances triggered Raymond Chandler’s writing ambitions. The decade-long economic crisis inconvenienced many employees among the Chandler who by then worked in the oil industry, holding an executive position in an oil firm. Chandler initially wrote poems before writing narrative prose.
An autodidactic learner, Raymond Chandler studied a plot formula written by Erle Stanley Gardner. Long story short, Raymond Chandler wrote his first noteworthy work, a short story, in the early 1930s and a pulp magazine published it. In the context of writing novels, Chandler debuted in 1939. Chandler ended up writing seven novel-length books and many short stories.
Raymond Chandler is renowned for penning Philip Marlowe series. The aforementioned series is composed of eight major works. There are 228 editions of the first book in the serialized work. The first edition was originally published in February 1939, titled The Big Sleep; the book is shelved under the mystery (particularly detective and noir sub-genres), fiction, crime, and classics genres.
The central character is named Philip Marlowe. Protagonist Marlowe is a six-footer, smoker, and alcoholic private eye; Marlowe likes coffee and plays chess. Marlowe’s place of birth is Santa Rosa upon California but his age varies from one novel to another. For instance, the first book points out that he is in his early thirties. Another installment in the series, which is set nearly one and a half decades later, shows that he is in his early forties. Despite the discrepancies, Chandler once stated that Marlowe was aged 38 as of April 1951.
The turning point in Raymond Chandler’s debut, The Big Sleep, is the moment detective Philip Marlowe is recruited by a certain ailing General Sternwood who is grappling with a blackmail issue concerning his daughter, a party animal named Carmen. The ensuing story as Marlowe goes into the murky world of organized crime, travels to places strewn with corpses, and leaves dead people in his wake, is intriguing in this hard-boiled award-nominated debut.
Raymond Chandler Awards
In 1955, Raymond Chandler clinched the Edgar Award for his book named The Long Goodbye. In 2000, Chandler was posthumously nominated for the Anthony Award, in the Novel of the Century category, thanks to his 1939 book The Big Sleep. Did you know that there is an Italian literary award named after Raymond Chandler?
Raymond Chandler Books into Movies
These are the most notable film adaptations of Raymond Chandler’s work. In the 1946 film titled The Big Sleep, the starring is Humphrey Bogart who portrays Philip Marlowe. In the 1975 film titled Farewell, My Lovely, Robert Mitchum appears as Philip Marlowe. In the 1973 film The Long Goodbye, Elliot Gould acts as Marlowe’s role. In the 1969 film Marlowe, based on the Chandler’s 1949 book The Little Sister, James Garner appears as Philip Marlowe. Robert Montgomery appears as Marlowe in the 1949 film Lady in the Lake. Dick Powell is Marlowe in the 1944 film titled Murder, My Sweet.
Best Raymond Chandler Books
The Big Sleep aside, these are the other two best books in Raymond Chandler’s bibliography.
The Long Goodbye: hereby, Marlowe makes an ill-thought move when he makes acquaintance with a damnable war veteran, prompting both law enforcers and criminals to come after him.
Farewell, My Lovely: Marlowe’s involvement with a prison escapee puts him at the center of a series of murders, organized crime, and an out-and-out corrupt police force.
Other Book Series You May Like
Readers who liked Raymond Chandler’s literary series also liked these book series. In James Ellroy’s tetralogy, “L.A. Quartet” series, Los Angeles Police Department detectives are sleuthing a series of gory murders. Richard Stark’s 24-book “Parker” series features an expert robber named Parker. Chester Himes’ 9-book “Harlem Cycle” series is set in the backdrop of Harlem and features badass protagonists Coffin Ed alongside Grave Digger Jones.
When Does The Next Raymond Chandler book come out?
Raymond Chandler doesn't seem to have an upcoming book. Their newest book is The World of Raymond Chandler and was released on November, 11th 2014. It is the newest book in the Raymond Chandler Non-Fiction Books.