In a few years of extraordinary creative energy, Dashiell Hammett
invented the modern American crime novel. In the words of Raymond
Chandler, "Hammett gave murder back to the kind of people that commit it
for reasons, not just to provide a corpse. . . . He put these people
down on paper as they were, and he made them talk and think in the
language they customarily used for these purposes." Beginning as a
prolific contributor to the pulp magazines of the 1920s, he succeeded
during his brief career in making his kind of crime fiction a crucial
part of the fabric of American writing: a genre that did not evade
reality but rather embodied the grittiness and harshness of modern urban
life.
The five novels that Hammett published between 1929 and 1934, collected
here in one Library of America volume, have become part of modern
American culture, creating archetypal characters and establishing the
ground rules and characteristic tone for a whole tradition of hardboiled
writing. Drawing on his own experiences as a Pinkerton detective,
Hammett gave a harshly realistic edge to novels that were at the same
time infused with a spirit of romantic adventure. His lean and
deliberately simplified prose won admiration from such contemporaries as
Gertrude Stein, Ernest Hemingway, and William Faulkner.
Each novel is distinct in mood and structure. Red Harvest (1929)
epitomizes the violence and momentum of his Black Mask stories about
the anonymous detective the Continental Op. In this raucous and
nightmarish evocation of political corruption and gang warfare in a
western mining town (modeled on Butte, Montana) nicknamed "Poisonville,"
the Op takes Machiavellian pleasure in pitting one faction against
another to bring about their mutual destruction. The Op returns in The
Dain Curse (1929) to preside over a more ornately melodramatic tale
involving jewel theft, drugs, and a mysterious religious cult.
With The Maltese Falcon (1930) and its protagonist Sam Spade, Hammett
achieved his most enduring popular success. A tightly constructed quest
story with an unforgettable cast of eccentric adventurers, it is at the
same time shot through with a sense of disillusionment and the
arbitrariness of personal destiny.
*
The Glass Key* (1931), an exploration of city politics at their most
scurrilous, traces intricate patterns of loyalty and betrayal in scenes
charged with drama. His last novel, The Thin Man (1934), is a ruefully
comic tale distinct from the rest of his work. Paying homage to the
traditional mystery form, it is best remembered for its protagonists
Nick and Nora Charles, the sophisticated inebriates who would enjoy a
long afterlife in the movies.
LIBRARY OF AMERICA is an independent nonprofit cultural organization
founded in 1979 to preserve our nation's literary heritage by
publishing, and keeping permanently in print, America's best and most
significant writing. The Library of America series includes more than
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