Raymond Chandler bibliography

Raymond Chandler (1888–1959) was an American-British novelist and screenwriter. He was born in Chicago, Illinois and lived in the United States until he was seven, when his parents separated and his Anglo-Irish mother brought him to live near London; he was educated at Dulwich College from 1900. After working briefly for the British Civil Service, he became a part-time teacher at Dulwich, supplementing his income as a journalist and writer—mostly for The Westminster Gazette and The Academy. His output—consisting largely of poems and essays—was not to his taste, and his biographer Paul Bishop considers the work as "lifeless", while Contemporary Authors describes it as "lofty in subject and mawkish in tone". Chandler returned to the United States in 1912 where he trained to become an accountant in Los Angeles. In 1917, he enlisted in the Canadian Expeditionary Force, saw combat in the trenches in France where he was wounded, and was undergoing flight training in the fledgling Royal Air Force when the war ended.

Chandler returned to the United States in 1919 to rekindle his literary career, but instead took a job with an oil company until he was fired in 1932 following a bout of depression, womanizing and heavy drinking. He began writing crime stories for the pulp magazines Black Mask, Detective Fiction Weekly, The Fortnightly Intruder and Dime Detective. Between 1933 and 1941, Chandler wrote 22 short stories. In the next 17 years he wrote only three more. In the mid-1940s, some of the first 22 began appearing in inexpensive paperback and hardcover collections published by Avon Books and World Publishing Co. In 1950, Houghton Mifflin published the hardcover collection The Simple Art of Murder, containing a dozen stories selected by Chandler and an essay on mystery stories. Eight stories that he had "cannibalized" (his term) while writing his novels were omitted at his request. After Chandler's death, these eight were published in Killer in the Rain (1964). Selected stories from The Simple Art of Murder were subsequently published in additional paperback and hardcover editions. In 1939, at the behest of the publisher Alfred A. Knopf, Sr., Chandler wrote his first novel, The Big Sleep, for which he used parts of his short stories "Killer in the Rain" (1935) and "The Curtain" (1936). He went on to write seven novels, all of which featured the character Philip Marlowe.

In 1944, Chandler was asked by Paramount Pictures to write the script for the film Double Indemnity with Billy Wilder; the film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. It was the first of seven scripts Chandler wrote, although two of them were unused. In 1959, Chandler died of pneumonia, brought on by alcoholism. In the aftermath of his death, many of his unpublished writings—including letters, literary criticism and prose and poetry—were released. His biographer, Tom Williams, considers that Chandler's name has become "a touchstone for crime writing, representing not just excellent fiction, but also a type of writing that is at once powerful and beautiful."

Novels

Title	Year of first publication	First edition publisher	Highest NYT position reached	Number of weeks on NYT list	Notes	Ref.	Farewell, My Lovely	Playback	Poodle Springs
1939	Alfred A. Knopf, New York	—	—	Based on the short stories "Killer in the Rain" (1935) and "The Curtain" (1936).
1940	Alfred A. Knopf, New York	—	—	Based on the short stories "The Man Who Liked Dogs" (1936), "Try The Girl" (1937) and "Mandarin's Jade" (1937).
1942	Alfred A. Knopf, New York	—	—	First Marlowe novel to not re-use previous short stories
1943	Alfred A. Knopf, New York	—	—	Based on the short stories "Bay City Blues" (1938), "The Lady In The Lake" (1939), "No Crime In The Mountains" (1941).
1949	Hamish Hamilton, London	#15	1	Scenes based on the short story "Bay City Blues" (1938).
1953	Hamish Hamilton, London	—	—	The first edition was in the UK, where it was published as The Long Good-Bye; winner of the Edgar Award for Best Novel, 1955. Scenes based on the short story "The Curtain" (1936).
1958	Hamish Hamilton, London	—	—	Based on an unproduced screenplay.
1989	G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York	#9	4	Unfinished novel when Chandler died; completed by American crime writer Robert B. Parker.

Source for The New York Times Best Seller list: Figures are for the Adult Hardcover Fiction lists, 1939 and on: highest position reached and total number of weeks on list (possibly nonconsecutive). A "—" indicates it did not make the list. Note that the Times list consisted of a Top 5 and ties prior to 1945, but a Top 15 and ties afterward.