Upon the publication of his first novel, The Big Sleep (1939), Raymond Chandler was hailed as one of the leading practitioners of the American hard-boiled detective novel, but he received virtually no recognition as a writer of serious literature....

In the late 1940s well-known British author and critic Evelyn Waugh hailed Raymond Chandler as America's "greatest living writer." Poet W. H. Auden stated that Chandler's mystery novels "should be read and judged, not as escape literature, but as works...

Raymond Thornton Chandler started writing fiction in middle-age, out of economic necessity, after being fired from his job. Despite his late start and relatively brief career, Chandler's influence on detective fiction was seminal. He and fellow...

Raymond Thornton Chandler (July 23, 1888 – March 26, 1959) was an author of crime stories and novels of immense stylistic influence upon modern crime fiction, especially in the style of the writing and the attitudes now characteristic of the...

Which work won a 2007 Edgar Allan Poe award for best play? Elementary, my dear reader! It was "Sherlock Holmes: The Final Adventure," by Steven Dietz.That wasn't the only Edgar award winner with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's fictional detective in the title. E.J. Wagner's nonfiction...

THE YIDDISH POLICEMEN’S UNIONBy Michael Chabon HarperCollins, 414 pages, $26.95 I’m not wild about hardboiled detective fiction. Raymond Chandler may paint a gritty world of hard-luck women, cigarettes and booze, but I still think he’s a lousy writer. Right now, perhaps because it’s spring, the...

MERE ANARCHYBy Woody Allen Random House, 160 pages, $21.95 THE INSANITY DEFENSE: THE COMPLETE PROSE By Woody Allen Random House, 342 pages, $15.95 Like every other kind of writer, humorists go in and out of fashion. Nobody seems to read Stephen Leacock anymore,...

I ought to be writing about Thomas Pynchon. His gargantuan new novel. But I’ve lost confidence in Mr. Pynchon, who hasn’t written a good book since Gravity’s Rainbow, 33 years ago, and so I found I couldn’t force myself to read the whole of Against...

In the following essay, Beekman maintains that Chandler's writings transcend the ordinary limitations of mystery-detective fiction through the author's acute consciousness of style and expert use of simile, metaphor, and characterization.

In the following essay, Marling surveys Chandler's short stories, addressing issues of plot, character, and style in each.

In the following essay, Margolies presents an overview of Chandler's career, commenting on his themes, style, and characters, as well as placing his works in their cultural and historical contexts.