"Early Raymond Chandler Stories" Topic

One of the tattered old paperbacks in my collection is "Killer in the Rain". The cover reads "8 hard hitting stories of violence from the universally acknowledged master". This collection includes short stories from the "pulp" magazines "Black Mask", "Dime Detective, and "Detective Story Magazine" that were originally printed in the 1930's and early 1940's, and they are all very good. His early detectives, like "Carmady", are very "hard boiled". More so, I found, than his later "Philip Marlowe". Interestingly, parts of these stories were re-used in his "Marlowe" novels. I don't think that "Killer in the Rain" is still in print, but I think it would be worth it to try to find a collection of Chandler's early short stories.

Yup. Still in print.
link

I'll have to check it out.

My favorite of the stories is "The Man Who Liked Dogs", the plot of which was later used as a section of "Farewell My Lovely" and in the film "Murder My Sweet" with Dick Powell.

After 15 years, I am now re reading Chandler's novels. And they are even better than the first time through! Thanks for the heads-up on the early works.

i prefer dashiell hammett myself, but chandler's works are also classics in the pulp/crime genre…

The Long Goodbye, one of the great American novels.

A couple of years back (copyright 2002), I picked up a copy of Chandler's Collected Stories by Everyman's Libarary Press. As advertised "All of Chandler's short fiction in one volume for the first time" – 25 stories in all. If you find it, well worth the admission of a couple of saw-bucks.

His entire body of work is readily available through the US library system too, for folks who are cheap or cramped for shelf space. Inter-library loans are a godsend to devoted readers.

>>A couple of years back (copyright 2002), I picked up a copy of Chandler's Collected Stories by Everyman's Libarary Press. As advertised "All of Chandler's short fiction in one volume for the first time" – 25 stories in all. If you find it, well worth the admission of a couple of saw-bucks.<<

I saw that book and would have recommended it rather than the "Killer in the Rain" collection, as it includes 23 stories rather than 8, but I couldn't find a table of contents to see if those 8 were included. Are these stories in the collection?:

"Killer in the Rain", "The Man Who Liked Dogs", "The Curtain", "Try the Girl", "Mandarin's Jade", "Bay City Blues", "The Lady in the Lake", and "No Crime in the Mountains"

I'm re-reading all of my Hammett right now. Chandler will be later this year.

>>I'm re-reading all of my Hammett right now. Chandler will be later this year.<<

I never got around to reading "The Thin Man". I suppose that I ought to one of these days. I love the film with William Powell and Myrna Loy.

The collection has the following stories, in order as listed:

"Blackmailers Don't Shoot" (1933)
"Smart-Aleck Kill" (1934)
"Finger Man" (1934)
"Killer In The Rain" (1935)
"Nevada Gas" (1935)
"Spanish Blood" (1935)
"Guns At Cyrano's" (1936)
"The Man Who Liked Dogs" (1936)
"Pick-Up On Noon Street" (1936)(aka "Noon Street Nemesis")
"Goldfish" (1936)
"The Curtain" (1936)
"Try The Girl" (1937)
"Mandarin's Jade" (1937)
"Red Wind" (1938)
"The King In Yellow" (1938)
"Bay City Blues" (1938)
"The Lady In The Lake" (1939)
"Pearls Are A Nuisance" (1939)
"Trouble Is My Business" (1939)
"I'll Be Waiting" (1939)
"The Bronze Door" (1939)
"No Crime In The Mountains" (1941)
"Professor Bingo's Snuff" (1951)
"The Pencil" (1959) (aka "Marlowe Takes On The Syndicate")
"English Summer" (1976)

A big plus of the volume is that it is hardback and matches Everyman's Library's volumes of Chandler's novels.

Plan on watching Powell's Philo Vance movies tonight ("The Canary Murder Case", "The Greene Murder Case", "The Benson Murder Case" & "The Kennel Murder Case"). Myrna is HOT!!

That big Everyman collection is great. My kinda-ex-girlfriend gave it to me for my birthday a while back. Great stuff.
I think the old Phillip Marlowe radio show did a pretty good job on the material too… some of them based straight up on the original stories.
You can get most all of the episodes cheap on CD here: link

>>I think the old Phillip Marlowe radio show did a pretty good job on the material too<<

I agree. It's one of my favorite radio drama series. Van Heflin played "Marlowe", then Gerald Mohr played him. Both were good.

Oppiedog

Thanks for the info. Obviously the Everyman's Library collection is a better value than the "Killer in the Rain" collection.

>>Myrna is HOT!!<<

In her very early films she *was* pretty sexy.

I never got around to reading "The Thin Man". I suppose that I ought to one of these days. I love the film with William Powell and Myrna Loy.

If you love the film, and that kind of writing, you'll definitely like the book. Like jazz, it's the words that weren't written that are important. Things like: "She swore she was telling the truth. I fixed a drink." Good stuff!

Raymond Chandler described Hammet's writing style in The Simple Art of Murder:

"Hammett wrote… for people with a sharp, aggressive attitude to life. They were not afraid of the seamy side of things; they lived there. Violence did not dismay them; it was right down their street. 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. "

You can also download a lot of the old Philip Marlowe radio shows for free from archive.org. link

One of the reasons the shorter Chandler stories have had a sporadic publishing record is, he tended to rework them into novels. He would take two stories, interweave the plots, and that would make a novel-length story.

So it's fun to find them, but several will be slightly disappointing as they will seem oddly familiar.

Just started reading Chandler for the first time. Coming to it in a round-about way after I started playing 'The Department'. The Department being a future-noir, not-Blade Runner-ish type game.

Picked up 'Raymond Chandler: Stories and Early Novels: Pulp Stories / The Big Sleep / Farewell, My Lovely / The High Window (Library of America)' at the library.

Great stuff!