Philip Marlowe

Philip Marlowe is a fictional private eye created by Raymond Chandler in a series of detective novels including The Big Sleep and The Long Goodbye. Marlowe first appeared in a short story called Finger Man published in 1934. In this early appearance, however, Chandler had not yet developed the elaborate similes which were to become his trademark, and Marlowe is hard to distinguish from Chandler's other short fiction characters, such as Johnny Dalmas. Furthermore, whereas in the later novels, Marlowe inhabits Los Angeles, Finger Man is set in a fictional city called San Angelo.

Marlowe Bibliography

• Finger Man (1934) (short story)
• The Big Sleep (1939)
• Farewell, My Lovely (1940)
• The High Window (1942)
• The Lady in the Lake (1943)
• The Little Sister (1949)
• The Long Goodbye (1954)
• Playback (1958)
• Poodle Springs (1959) (completed by Robert B. Parker, 1989)
• The Pencil, aka Marlowe Takes on the Syndicate (1961) (short story)
• Perchance to Dream (Robert B. Parker, 1991)
• Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe: A Centenary Celebration (collection of short stories by other writers, ed. Byron Preiss, 1988)