Dashiell Hammett

"Hammett gave murder back to the kind of people who do it for a reason, not just to provide a corpse; and with means at hand, not with handwrought dueling pistols, curare, and tropical fish."

His work

His work was published primarily in the pulp magazine Black Mask under the editorship of Joseph Shaw. Hammett's first story published in Black Mask was "The Road Home" under the pseudonym of Peter Collinson in December 1922. The Continental Op was introduced in the October 1923 issue of Black Mask in a story titled "Arson Plus." The Continental Op would eventually appear in 28 stories and two novels. In 1932, he also wrote the comic strip Secret Agent X-9, which was drawn by Alex Raymond.

Related Topics:
Black Mask - Joseph Shaw - The Continental Op - 1932 - Secret Agent X-9 - Alex Raymond

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Many of his books were adapted to film, most notably The Maltese Falcon (the 1941 film version, directed by John Huston). The dialogue in his novels was often incorporated verbatim into the screenplay. He was also asked to doctor scripts for Hollywood, which brought him even more money than his novels; however the situation of a script writer, as described in the essays of Raymond Chandler and in the film Barton Fink, was a source of deep frustration to him.

Related Topics:
The Maltese Falcon - 1941 - John Huston - Raymond Chandler - Barton Fink

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His own favorite among his novels is said to have been The Glass Key. His most bloody and macabrely humorous work is Red Harvest a story of political corruption and gang war in the town of "Poisonville".

Related Topics:
The Glass Key - Red Harvest

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