Raymond Chandler

Raymond Chandler (1888-1959), American writer, known for his gritty tales of crime and detection. Chandler was one of the writers of the so-called hard-boiled school of detective fiction, which was characterized by a tough, realistic, and unsentimental point of view. He helped develop the genre into a sophisticated literary form. All of Chandler’s novels and many of his short stories focus on the exploits of private detective Philip Marlowe. Chandler’s works are mostly set in Los Angeles, California, in the 1930s and 1940s and depict a dark world of violence, corruption, and paranoia.

Chandler did not begin writing professionally until 1933, when he lost his job as an executive at a Los Angeles oil company. His first efforts were short stories published in magazines specializing in crime fiction, such as Black Mask. Chandler’s first novel, The Big Sleep (1939), chronicled Philip Marlowe’s search for a missing person through a shadowy underworld of blackmail, murder, and opium addiction. Subsequent novels included Farewell, My Lovely (1940), The High Window (1942), The Lady in the Lake (1944), and The Long Goodbye (1953). Chandler’s last complete novel, Playback, appeared in 1958. His short-story collections include Five Sinister Characters (1945) and The Simple Art of Murder (1950). Poodle Springs, a novel that Chandler left unfinished at his death, was completed by American crime writer Robert B. Parker and published in 1989.

In the 1940s and early 1950s Chandler occasionally wrote scripts for motion pictures. His most notable works included a 1944 collaboration with American director Billy Wilder on Double Indemnity and a 1951 collaboration with British director Alfred Hitchcock on Strangers on a Train. Chandler’s work on motion pictures increased public interest in his fiction, and film adaptations of his novels began to appear. A 1944 adaptation of Farewell, My Lovely starring Dick Powell appeared under the title Murder, My Sweet, and in 1946 American director Howard Hawks made a popular film version of The Big Sleep starring Humphrey Bogart.

Raymond Thornton Chandler was born in Chicago, Illinois, and moved with his mother to England when he was still young. He studied at Dulwich College, London, and then worked as a teacher and journalist. In 1912 he moved to California. During World War I (1914-1918) Chandler served in the Canadian Army. After the war, he went to work for the Dabney-Johnston Oil Corporation in Los Angeles, eventually rising to an executive position. In the late 1920s Chandler began to drink heavily, a problem that would plague him throughout the rest of his life. Once he began writing in 1933, he never returned to the business world.