The Big Sleep: A Novel

Raymond Chandler

Jun 2002 · Sold by Vintage Crime/Black Lizard

About this ebook

The renowned novel from the crime fiction master, with the "quintessential urban private eye" (Los Angeles Times), Philip Marlowe. • Featuring the iconic character that inspired the film Marlowe, starring Liam Neeson.

One of The Atlantic’s Great American Novels of the Past 100 Years

A dying millionaire hires private eye Philip Marlowe to handle the blackmailer of one of his two troublesome daughters, and Marlowe finds himself involved with more than extortion. Kidnapping, pornography, seduction, and murder are just a few of the complications he gets caught up in.

“Chandler seems to have created the culminating American hero: wised up, hopeful, thoughtful, adventurous, sentimental, cynical and rebellious.” —The New York Times Book Review

Ratings and reviews

Chandler's "The Big Sleep," is the most potent & valuable work in his oeuvre, & one of the best novels ever written, mystery or otherwise. His ability to create both physical & pyschological atmosphere is so legendary that countless authors would follow his lead in positing scene & setting more effective than plot. You can smell, hear, taste and FEEL Los Angeles as it was in the 1930s with a brilliant, snappy pace & with just enough well-drawn character & pulpy, noir dialogue to render it well-rounded.

An outdated period piece, this story wouldn't survive the edit/copy room in modern society. It is horribly outdated in its themes, references and sentiments. Despite its flaws though, the climax was really engaging and earned even down the renouement was a let down. It earns point for capturing outdated literature but narratively it's below average IMO.

Have to remember, it was this book and others like them that created a genre, one we may think a bit cliche today because so many have mimicked the style and tone to the point of parody. But this is the real thing and it will not be mocked. Sure, some of the sensibilities make us blush in this more enlightened time, maybe even offend, but it is a product of its time and a glimpse into the seedy underbelly of the big city. You want Noir, this will give it to you like five shots fired at six feet.

About the author

RAYMOND THORNTON CHANDLER (1888 - 1959) was the master practitioner of American hard-boiled crime fiction. Although he was born in Chicago, Chandler spent most of his boyhood and youth in England where he attended Dulwich College and later worked as a freelance journalist for The Westminster Gazette and The Spectator. During World War I, Chandler served in France with the First Division of the Canadian Expeditionary Force, transferring later to the Royal Flying Corps (R. A. F.). In 1919 he returned to the United States, settling in California, where he eventually became director of a number of independent oil companies. The Depression put an end to his career, and in 1933, at the age of forty-five, he turned to writing fiction, publishing his first stories in Black Mask. Chandler’s detective stories often starred the brash but honorable Philip Marlowe (introduced in 1939 in his first novel, The Big Sleep) and were noted for their literate presentation and dead-on critical eye. Never a prolific writer, Chandler published only one collection of stories and seven novels in his lifetime. Some of Chandler’s novels, like The Big Sleep, were made into classic movies which helped define the film noir style. In the last year of his life he was elected president of the Mystery Writers of America. He died in La Jolla, California on March 26, 1959.