The Notebooks of Raymond Chandler - (Paperback)

About the Book

During a period of twenty years from his start as a young writer for H. L. Mencken s classic pulp magazine The Black Mask in the early 1930s, through the publication of his novels The Big Sleep and Farewell, My Lovely, to his career as a Hollywood screenwriter in the 1940s Raymond Chandler kept a series of private notebooks.

Drawn from those journals, The Notebooks of Raymond Chandler offers an intimate view of the writer at work, revealing early ideas, descriptions, and anecdotes that would later be used in The Long Goodbye, The Blue Dahlia, and other classics.

Filled with both public and private writings, The Notebooks of Raymond Chandler includes Marlowesque particulars such as pickpocket lingo, San Quentin jailhouse slang, a Note on the Tommygun, and musings on Craps. Here, too, are surprising, lesser known essays on Hollywood, the mystery story, British and American writing, and a wicked parody of Hemingway. This sampler by turns whimsical, provocative, irreverent, and fascinating also contains a list of possible story titles; Chandlerisms; and his short work English Summer: A Gothic Romance, which the writer viewed as a turning point in his career."

Book Synopsis

During a period of twenty years--from his start as a young writer for H. L. Mencken's classic pulp magazine The Black Mask in the early 1930s, through the publication of his novels The Big Sleep and Farewell, My Lovely, to his career as a Hollywood screenwriter in the 1940s--Raymond Chandler kept a series of private notebooks.

Drawn from those journals, The Notebooks of Raymond Chandler offers an intimate view of the writer at work, revealing early ideas, descriptions, and anecdotes that would later be used in The Long Goodbye, The Blue Dahlia, and other classics.

Filled with both public and private writings, The Notebooks of Raymond Chandler includes "Marlowesque" particulars such as pickpocket lingo, San Quentin jailhouse slang, a "Note on the Tommygun," and musings on "Craps." Here, too, are surprising, lesser known essays on Hollywood, the mystery story, British and American writing, and a wicked parody of Hemingway. This sampler--by turns whimsical, provocative, irreverent, and fascinating--also contains a list of possible story titles; "Chandlerisms;" and his short work "English Summer: A Gothic Romance," which the writer viewed as a turning point in his career.

From the Back Cover

Over the course of two prolific decades--from 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 gives us an 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. Also included is the short story "English Summer: A Gothic Romance," which Chandler considered a major turning point in his career.