Download or read book Dashiell Hammett written by Sally Cline and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2016-06-07 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dashiell Hammett changed the face of crime fiction. In five novels published over five years as well as a string of stories, he transformed the mystery genre into literature and left us with the figure of the hard-boiled detective, from the Continental Op to Sam Spade—immortalized on film by Humphrey Bogart in The Maltese Falcon—and the more glamorous Thin Man, also made iconic with the aid of Hollywood. A brilliant writer, Hammett was a complex and enigmatic man. After 1934 until his death in 1961, he published no more novels and suffered from a writer’s block that both shamed and maimed him. He is identified with his tough protagonists, but his tuberculosis compromised his masculine identity and alcoholism may have been his answer. A former Pinkerton detective who valued honesty, he was attracted to women who lied outrageously, most notably Lillian Hellman, with whom he conducted a thirty-year affair. A controversial political activist who stood up for civil liberty, he was also a very private man. In this compact new biography, Sally Cline uses fresh research, including interviews with Hammett’s family and Hellman’s heir, to reexamine the life and works of the writer whom Raymond Chandler called “the ace performer.”
Download or read book Red Harvest written by Dashiell Hammett and published by Vintage Crime/Black Lizard. This book was released on 2010-12-29 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The steadfast and sturdy Continental Op has been summoned to the town of Personville—known as Poisonville—a dusty mining community splintered by competing factions of gangsters and petty criminals. The Op has been hired by Donald Willsson, publisher of the local newspaper, who gave little indication about the reason for the visit. No sooner does the Op arrive, than the body count begins to climb . . . starting with his client. With this last honest citizen of Poisonville murdered, the Op decides to stay on and force a reckoning—even if that means taking on an entire town. Red Harvest is more than a superb crime novel: it is a classic exploration of corruption and violence in the American grain.
Download or read book Dashiell Hammett a Life written by Diane Johnson and published by Ballantine Books. This book was released on 1987 with total page 388 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The definitive life of one of America's most important, enigmatic, and fascinating novelists.
Download or read book Selected Letters of Dashiell Hammett 1921 1960 written by Dashiell Hammett and published by Catapult. This book was released on 2002-04-25 with total page 688 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A selection from the letters of Dashiell Hammett, the American writer of crime fiction. Here is Hammett the family man, distant but devoted; Hammett the student of politics, scanning the headlines from a Marxist perspective; and Hammett the lover of Lillian Hellman, delighting in her style, humour, accomplishments, but maintaining his independence. Celebrity, soldier, activist, survivor--these letters show how Hammett was each of these in turn, but was always, above all, a writer.
Download or read book The Maltese Falcon written by Dashiell Hammett and published by DigiCat. This book was released on 2022-08-10 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The fragrant Miss Wonderley hires Sam Spade, a private detective, to track down her sister, who has eloped with an immoral man called Floyd Thursby. But trouble finds Spade when his partner Miles Archer gets shot while on Thursby's trail. "The Maltese Falcon" is a classic mystery novel that shaped how writers told detective stories.
Download or read book The Big Book of the Continental Op written by Dashiell Hammett and published by Vintage Crime/Black Lizard. This book was released on 2017-11-28 with total page 754 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Now for the first time ever in one volume, all twenty-eight stories and two serialized novels starring the Continental Op—one of the greatest characters in storied history of detective fiction. Dashiell Hammett is the father of modern hard-boiled detective stories. His legendary works have been lauded for almost one hundred years by fans, and his novel The Maltese Falcon was adapted into a classic film starring Humphrey Bogart. One of Dashiell Hammett's most memorable characters, the Continental Op made his debut in Black Mask magazine on October 1, 1923, narrating the first of twenty-eight stories and two novels that would change forever the face of detective fiction. The Op is a tough, wry, unglamorous gumshoe who has inspired a following that is both global and enduring. He has been published in periodicals, paperback digests, and short story collections, but until now, he has never, in all his ninety-two years, had the whole of his exploits contained in one book. The book features all twenty-eight of the original standalone Continental Op stories, the original serialized versions of Red Harvest and The Dain Curse, and previously unpublished material. This anthology of Continental Op stories is the only complete, one-volume work of its kind.
Download or read book The Novels of Dashiell Hammett written by Dashiell Hammett and published by . This book was released on 1965 with total page 748 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume contains five of Hammett's novels, four of which were transformed into motion pictures. His stories of unmatched suspense are exciting and well plotted and portray the corruptions in American society and the undercurrent of violence that runs through American life. ISBN 0-394-43860-4 : $19.95.
Download or read book The Dain Curse written by Dashiell Hammett and published by Vintage Crime/Black Lizard. This book was released on 2011-02-23 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When eight diamonds are stolen from a prominent San Francisco family, the Continental Op is called in to investigate. But the missing jewels aren’t the only thing out of the ordinary. The man who reported the burglary ends up dead, ostensibly a suicide. His daughter, one of the suspects, Miss Gabrielle Dain Leggett, has a penchant for morphine and religious cults. She also has an unfortunate effect on the people around her: they have a habit of dying. Might Gabrielle be the victim of an arcane family curse? Or is the truth about her stranger and even more dangerous? The Dain Curse is one of the Continental Op’s most bizarre cases and a tautly crafted masterpiece of suspense.
Download or read book Shadow Man written by Richard Layman and published by Manly. This book was released on 1981 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The legend of Dashiell Hammett, the former Pinkerton detective who reinvented the mystery story in five books written between 1929 and 1934, is carefully examined here by Richard Layman in a meticulously factual account of all that is likely to be known about the real "Continental Op." This unsentimental account of Hammett from his rural Maryland youth through the Pinkerton years in San Francisco, fame as a novelist, notoriety as a Hollywood screen writer, imprisonment as an uncooperative McCarthy committee witness, and an obscure death in 1961 highlights the facts while accenting the shadow on which the legend would be built. Book jacket.
Download or read book The Lost Detective written by Nathan Ward and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2015-09-15 with total page 211 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A 2016 Edgar Award Nominee Before he became a household name in America as perhaps our greatest hard-boiled crime writer, before his attachment to Lillian Hellman and blacklisting during the McCarthy era, and his subsequent downward spiral, Dashiell Hammett led a life of action. Born in 1894 into a poor Maryland family, Hammett left school at fourteen and held several jobs before joining the Pinkerton National Detective Agency as an operative in 1915 and, with time off in 1918 to serve at the end of World War I, he remained with the agency until 1922, participating alike in the banal and dramatic action of an operative. The tuberculosis he contracted during the war forced him to leave the Pinkertons--but it may well have prompted one of America's most acclaimed writing careers. While Hammett's life on center stage has been well-documented, the question of how he got there has not. That largely overlooked phase is the subject of Nathan Ward's enthralling The Lost Detective. Hammett's childhood, his life in San Francisco, and especially his experience as a detective deeply informed his writing and his characters, from the nameless Continental Op, hero of his stories and early novels, to Sam Spade and Nick Charles. The success of his many stories in the pulp magazine Black Mask following his departure from the Pinkertons led him to novels; he would write five between 1929 and 1934, two of them (The Maltese Falcon and The Thin Man) now American classics. Though he inspired generations of writers, from Chandler to Connelly and all in between, after The Thin Man he never finished another book, a painful silence for his devoted readers; and his popular image has long been shaped by the remembrance of Hellman, who knew him after his literary reputation had been made. Based on original research across the country, The Lost Detective is the first book to illuminate Hammett's transformation from real detective to great American detective writer, throwing brilliant new light on one of America's most celebrated and remembered novelists and his world.
Download or read book The Thin Man written by Dashiell Hammett and published by Wildside Press LLC. This book was released on 2023-02-21 with total page 191 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Thin Man (1934) is a detective novel by Dashiell Hammett, made famouos by the series of movies based on it starring William Powell and Myrna Loy. The story is set in New York City during the Christmas season of 1932, in the last days of Prohibition in the United States. Nick Charles, a retired private detective, and Nora, his socialite wife, become embroiled in a mystery.
Download or read book The Glass Key written by Dashiell Hammett and published by McClelland & Stewart. This book was released on 2016-04-19 with total page 161 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Unlike most of Hammett’s works, the protagonist of The Glass Key isn’t a private detective; Ned Beaumont is a gambler, and the friend of a criminal boss. The action starts when he discovers the body of a senator’s son, and his friend wants him to help cover it up as a means of gaining the senator’s favour. This draws Beaumont into a brewing gang war, and he has to solve the mystery if he wants to get out alive. It has been adapted for film twice. Penguin Random House Canada is proud to bring you classic works of literature in e-book form, with the highest quality production values. Find more today and rediscover books you never knew you loved.
Download or read book The Continental Op 1924 written by Dashiell Hammett and published by www.PulpFictionBook.Store. This book was released on 2024-02-17 with total page 438 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The nine Continental Op stories written by Dashiell Hammett in 1924. The Tenth Clew – There were enough clews in this crime to give Mr. Hammett’s nameless detective a year or so of work. But solving a mystery in that length of time didn’t appeal to him. He wanted faster action—and he got it in good measure. So will you if you begin this entertaining novelette. I “Do you know. . . Emil Bonfils?” II “That’s Something!” III “A sleek kitten that dame!” IV “Maybe that ain’t so foolish!” V “Meet Mr. Smith” VI “Those damned horns!” VII “You have a lot of fun, don’t you?” VIII “I hope you swing!” Night Shots Zigzags of Treachery -A twelve chapter novella. One Hour – A three chapter novelette The House In Turk Street – We wouldn’t consider an issue complete without one of Mr. Hammett’s stories in it, and after you’ve read this tale, you’ll understand why. The Girl With The Silver Eyes – Mr. Hammett has written some lively and unusual tales about his realistic detective from the Continental Detective Agency, whose name has never been disclosed; but for action, shrewd detective-work, sheer interest, and surprise, his latest, herewith, surpasses them all.” A nineteen chapter novella. Death On Pine Street The Golden Horseshoe – In our recent voting contest for favorite Black Mask authors, Dashiell Hammett received thousands of votes because of his series of stories of the adventures of his San Francisco detective. He has created one of the most convincing and realistic characters in all detective fiction. The story, herewith, is one of his best to date. We know you’ll enjoy it to the last word.” A nine chapter novelette. Who Killed Bob Teal? – Operative Teal went out to shadow a thief, who didn’t even know he was suspected. Seven hours after Teal left his agency’s office, he was found—shot to death. Whose hand cut him down?”
Download or read book Nightmare Town written by Dashiell Hammett and published by Vintage Crime/Black Lizard. This book was released on 2015-09-16 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Twenty long-unavailable stories by Dashiell Hammett, the author of The Maltese Falcon and the incomparable master of detective fiction. In the title story, a man on a bender enters a small town and ends up unraveling the dark mystery at its heart. A woman confronts the brutal truth about her husband in the chilling story "Ruffian's Wife." "His Brother's Keeper" is a half-wit boxer's eulogy to the brother who betrayed him. "The Second-Story Angel" recounts one of the most novel cons ever devised. In seven stories, the tough and taciturn Continental Op takes on a motley collection of the deceitful, the duped, and the dead, and once again shows his uncanny ability to get at the truth. In three stories, Sam Spade confronts the darkness in the human soul while rolling his own cigarettes. And the first study for The Thin Man sends John Guild on a murder investigation in which almost every witness may be lying. In Nightmare Town, Dashiell Hammett, America's poet laureate of the dispossessed, shows us a world where people confront a multitude of evils. Whether they are trying to right wrongs or just trying to survive, all of them are rendered with Hammett's signature gifts for sharp-edged characters and blunt dialogue. Hammett said that his ambition was to elevate mystery fiction to the level of art. This collection of masterful stories clearly illustrates Hammett's success, and shows the remarkable range and variety of the fiction he produced.
Download or read book The Autumn Garden written by Lillian Hellman and published by Dramatists Play Service Inc. This book was released on 1952 with total page 108 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: THE STORY: In the words of New York Post : Miss Hellman is contemplating the meaning of middle age to an assorted group of people gathered together in a summer home... All of them are in one way or another frustrated and unhappy. Most of them
Download or read book Hellman and Hammett written by Joan Mellen and published by Harper Perennial. This book was released on 1997 with total page 628 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the first dual biography of Lillian Hellman and Dashiell Hammett, New York Times bestselling author Joan Mellen sheds new light on two of the twentieth century's most intriguing characters. The first biographer to draw from the Hellman-Hammett archives at the University of Texas, and with unprecedented access to their circle of friends, Mellen taps mines of fresh material to produce a groundbreaking look at these extraordinary American nonconformists, separately and together. Cutting against the social and political grain of their day, Hellman and Hammett as proud American radicals were persecuted during McCarthyism. They also turned out some of the most compelling prose of our country: Hammett's classic Red Harvest, The Maltese Falcon, and The Thin Man, and Hellman's plays The Little Foxes, Watch on the Rhine, and her memoirs An Unfinished Woman and Pentimento. Meanwhile, Lillian Hellman and Dashiell Hammett defied every accepted formula of how a man and woman should love each other: intimate as a couple, they lived together infrequently, drank to excess, participated in orgies, and engaged in flagrant infidelities. For the first time, members of Hellman and Hammett's circle, including Peter Feibleman, Norman Mailer, and Rose Styron, have agreed to speak openly about this enigmatic relationship which defined an era.
Download or read book The Dain Curse written by Dashiell Hammett and published by DigiCat. This book was released on 2022-08-16 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: DigiCat Publishing presents to you this special edition of "The Dain Curse" by Dashiell Hammett. DigiCat Publishing considers every written word to be a legacy of humankind. Every DigiCat book has been carefully reproduced for republishing in a new modern format. The books are available in print, as well as ebooks. DigiCat hopes you will treat this work with the acknowledgment and passion it deserves as a classic of world literature.
