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Collected Stories
The only complete edition of stories by the undisputed master of detective literature, collected here for the first time in one volume, including some stories that have been unavailable for decades.
When Raymond Chandler turned to writing at the age of forty-five, he began by publishing stories in pulp magazines such as “Black Mask” before later writing his famous novels. These stories are where Chandler honed his art and developed his uniquely vivid underworld, peopled with good cops and bad cops, informers and extortionists, lethally predatory blondes and redheads, and crime, sex, gambling, and alcohol in abundance. In addition to his classic hard-boiled stories–in which his signature atmosphere of depravity and violence swirls around the cool, intuitive loners whose type culminated in the famous detective Philip Marlowe–Chandler also turned his hand to fantasy and even a gothic romance.
This rich treasury of twenty-five stories shows Chandler developing the terse, laconic, understated style that would serve him so well in his later masterpieces, and immerses the reader in the richly realized fictional universe that has become an enduring part of our literary landscape.
When Raymond Chandler turned to writing at the age of forty-five, he began by publishing stories in pulp magazines such as “Black Mask” before later writing his famous novels. These stories are where Chandler honed his art and developed his uniquely vivid underworld, peopled with good cops and bad cops, informers and extortionists, lethally predatory blondes and redheads, and crime, sex, gambling, and alcohol in abundance. In addition to his classic hard-boiled stories–in which his signature atmosphere of depravity and violence swirls around the cool, intuitive loners whose type culminated in the famous detective Philip Marlowe–Chandler also turned his hand to fantasy and even a gothic romance.
This rich treasury of twenty-five stories shows Chandler developing the terse, laconic, understated style that would serve him so well in his later masterpieces, and immerses the reader in the richly realized fictional universe that has become an enduring part of our literary landscape.
1299 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1959
105 people are currently reading
1332 people want to read
About the author
Raymond Chandler
449 books5,602 followersRaymond Thornton Chandler was an American-British novelist and screenwriter. In 1932, at the age of forty-four, Chandler became a detective fiction writer after losing his job as an oil company executive during the Great Depression. His first short story, "Blackmailers Don't Shoot", was published in 1933 in Black Mask, a popular pulp magazine. His first novel, The Big Sleep, was published in 1939. In addition to his short stories, Chandler published seven novels during his lifetime (an eighth, in progress at the time of his death, was completed by Robert B. Parker). All but Playback have been made into motion pictures, some more than once. In the year before his death, he was elected president of the Mystery Writers of America.
Chandler had an immense stylistic influence on American popular literature. He is a founder of the hardboiled school of detective fiction, along with Dashiell Hammett, James M. Cain and other Black Mask writers. The protagonist of his novels, Philip Marlowe, like Hammett's Sam Spade, is considered by some to be synonymous with "private detective". Both were played in films by Humphrey Bogart, whom many consider to be the quintessential Marlowe.
The Big Sleep placed second on the Crime Writers Association poll of the 100 best crime novels; Farewell, My Lovely (1940), The Lady in the Lake (1943) and The Long Goodbye (1953) also made the list. The latter novel was praised in an anthology of American crime stories as "arguably the first book since Hammett's The Glass Key, published more than twenty years earlier, to qualify as a serious and significant mainstream novel that just happened to possess elements of mystery". Chandler was also a perceptive critic of detective fiction; his "The Simple Art of Murder" is the canonical essay in the field. In it he wrote: "Down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid. The detective must be a complete man and a common man and yet an unusual man. He must be, to use a rather weathered phrase, a man of honor—by instinct, by inevitability, without thought of it, and certainly without saying it. He must be the best man in his world and a good enough man for any world."
Parker wrote that, with Marlowe, "Chandler seems to have created the culminating American hero: wised up, hopeful, thoughtful, adventurous, sentimental, cynical and rebellious—an innocent who knows better, a Romantic who is tough enough to sustain Romanticism in a world that has seen the eternal footman hold its coat and snicker. Living at the end of the Far West, where the American dream ran out of room, no hero has ever been more congruent with his landscape. Chandler had the right hero in the right place, and engaged him in the consideration of good and evil at precisely the time when our central certainty of good no longer held."
Chandler had an immense stylistic influence on American popular literature. He is a founder of the hardboiled school of detective fiction, along with Dashiell Hammett, James M. Cain and other Black Mask writers. The protagonist of his novels, Philip Marlowe, like Hammett's Sam Spade, is considered by some to be synonymous with "private detective". Both were played in films by Humphrey Bogart, whom many consider to be the quintessential Marlowe.
The Big Sleep placed second on the Crime Writers Association poll of the 100 best crime novels; Farewell, My Lovely (1940), The Lady in the Lake (1943) and The Long Goodbye (1953) also made the list. The latter novel was praised in an anthology of American crime stories as "arguably the first book since Hammett's The Glass Key, published more than twenty years earlier, to qualify as a serious and significant mainstream novel that just happened to possess elements of mystery". Chandler was also a perceptive critic of detective fiction; his "The Simple Art of Murder" is the canonical essay in the field. In it he wrote: "Down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid. The detective must be a complete man and a common man and yet an unusual man. He must be, to use a rather weathered phrase, a man of honor—by instinct, by inevitability, without thought of it, and certainly without saying it. He must be the best man in his world and a good enough man for any world."
Parker wrote that, with Marlowe, "Chandler seems to have created the culminating American hero: wised up, hopeful, thoughtful, adventurous, sentimental, cynical and rebellious—an innocent who knows better, a Romantic who is tough enough to sustain Romanticism in a world that has seen the eternal footman hold its coat and snicker. Living at the end of the Far West, where the American dream ran out of room, no hero has ever been more congruent with his landscape. Chandler had the right hero in the right place, and engaged him in the consideration of good and evil at precisely the time when our central certainty of good no longer held."
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 77 reviews
October 25, 2021
It is said that Chandler himself said that he cannibalised his short stories to write [some of] his novels. With this in mind, and having just recently read all seven of his [completed] novels back-to-back, I thought it'd be interesting to see just what exactly was borrowed/lifted from the short stories, and to what extent.
Out of the 25 stories included here, and except for a few character name changes and minor plot thread adjustments to connect the different stories (re-)used, 2 (or 3) stories were, um... blatantly recycled for each of the following Chandler novels: The Big Sleep, Farewell, My Lovely, and The Lady in the Lake. Even the title for this last one was recycled!!
The Lady in the Lake is probably my favourite Chandler novel (closely followed by Farewell, My Lovely), so re-reading them - or parts of them - I didn't mindso much at all.
But what about the other stories? Well, there's some really good stuff in here, and some things you definitely would not expect from Raymond Chandler. For instance, one story (The Bronze Door) involves a huge magical (bronze) door, and anyone (or anything) that crosses its threshold just... disappears. With its plot and humour, this is the kind of story I'd expect to find in a Mark Twain anthology (for example: The Complete Short Stories of Mark Twain - yet another Everyman's Library book), certainly, but we can agree that Chandler and Twain are not exactly in the same market, and that's what makes it a welcome surprise.
If you've read the three Chandler novels mentioned above, there's still plenty in here for you. This massive, 1299-page beast is anything but. The stories are so good, the pages practically turn themselves (it seems I could not avoid the oft-recycled cliché). It's a beautiful hardcover from the Everyman's Library series published by Alfred A. Knopf, and at the low price you can get it online from, say, Amazon - well, it's practically a crime NOT to get this book.
Out of the 25 stories included here, and except for a few character name changes and minor plot thread adjustments to connect the different stories (re-)used, 2 (or 3) stories were, um... blatantly recycled for each of the following Chandler novels: The Big Sleep, Farewell, My Lovely, and The Lady in the Lake. Even the title for this last one was recycled!!
The Lady in the Lake is probably my favourite Chandler novel (closely followed by Farewell, My Lovely), so re-reading them - or parts of them - I didn't mind
But what about the other stories? Well, there's some really good stuff in here, and some things you definitely would not expect from Raymond Chandler. For instance, one story (The Bronze Door) involves a huge magical (bronze) door, and anyone (or anything) that crosses its threshold just... disappears. With its plot and humour, this is the kind of story I'd expect to find in a Mark Twain anthology (for example: The Complete Short Stories of Mark Twain - yet another Everyman's Library book), certainly, but we can agree that Chandler and Twain are not exactly in the same market, and that's what makes it a welcome surprise.
If you've read the three Chandler novels mentioned above, there's still plenty in here for you. This massive, 1299-page beast is anything but. The stories are so good, the pages practically turn themselves (it seems I could not avoid the oft-recycled cliché). It's a beautiful hardcover from the Everyman's Library series published by Alfred A. Knopf, and at the low price you can get it online from, say, Amazon - well, it's practically a crime NOT to get this book.
January 3, 2018
Παραμένω οπαδός της "μεγάλης φόρμας", αποφεύγοντας τα διηγήματα (παραξενιά μου, χωρίς ουσιαστική βάση!). Είπα όμως να κάνω μια εξαίρεση για έναν από τους μεγαλύτερους Στυλίστες του Νουάρ (και εν γένει): τον Ρ. Τσάντλερ.
Η έκδοση του Κέδρου (σε 2 μικρούς τόμους), περιέχει κάποιες πολύ ενδιαφέρουσες και χαρακτηριστικές ιστορίες, και άλλες όχι και τόσο, αν και η αναγνωστική απόλαυση είναι δεδομένη. Σε κάθε περίπτωση, πάντως, προτιμώ τα αξεπέραστα μυθιστορήματά του!
Η έκδοση του Κέδρου (σε 2 μικρούς τόμους), περιέχει κάποιες πολύ ενδιαφέρουσες και χαρακτηριστικές ιστορίες, και άλλες όχι και τόσο, αν και η αναγνωστική απόλαυση είναι δεδομένη. Σε κάθε περίπτωση, πάντως, προτιμώ τα αξεπέραστα μυθιστορήματά του!
February 20, 2012
This is more of an observation than a review. So...here goes: Raymond Chandler is to the detective short story what Philip K. Dick is to the science fiction short story. They are both able to conjure up an entire world of people, places and characters within the confining walls of a short story.
August 26, 2023
I've owned this collection for about 20 years, and re-read it occasionally. However, this was the first time I've read the whole thing right to the end. Before, I've left out the last three stories because I didn't want to live in a world without any more Raymond Chandler fiction. Curiosity finally got the better of me.
May 3, 2020
Excelente recopilación de relatos del policial negro. Se nota la mano del maestro. Aparece Marlowe entre otros muchos detectives. Si te gusta Chandler es de lectura obligatoria. Si te gusta la novela negra o el cine negro, aquí tienes el surgimiento de estos. Rubias platino, pelirrojas, mucho whisky barato (y no tan barato), diálogos imborrables... Un cóctel para todo buen aficionado de este tipo de novela.
August 6, 2017
3.5. It took me forever to finish this. Not because it's boring, no, just because it has soooooo many pages. All this pulp fiction, I'm gonna tell you, I love it. And those mystery stories with fantasy elements are also pretty awesome.
August 16, 2019
Casi imprescindible
December 5, 2024
This mammoth volume collects all of Chandler's short stories, a few of which evolved into Marlowe novels (Killers in the Rain, Lady in the Lake). There are a couple of odd forays into fantasy (a magic door, invisibility), but otherwise they are in his more familiar style.
A real treat for Chandler fans.
A real treat for Chandler fans.
December 23, 2015
This mammoth tome occupied my bedside nightstand for several weeks, and I'd read a bit each night. It is an excellent collection of short stories, most take place in and around Los Angeles. Some are better than others, but there really isn't a bad one in the bunch. Interesting too, that one finds several short stories in here that Chandler revisited later and fleshed out as a couple of his Philip Marlowe novels. And having recently reread the Philip Marlowe novels, it was instructive to see how much Chandler's writing craft and plot development had matured and improved with time. This Everyman's Library cloth-bound edition is a nice collection to have on the shelf.
Chandler's Collected Stories gets 4 of 5 stars from me.
Chandler's Collected Stories gets 4 of 5 stars from me.
January 16, 2011
Raymond Chandler is the master of noir fiction. This book is the only complete edition of his stories and is chock full of hard-boiled detective stories populated by cunning criminals, good cops, bad cops, sexy blondes and tough detectives, including the famous Philip Marlowe. These are just great stories of the L.A. underworld of the 1930's, '40's and 50's.
June 30, 2014
I picked this up in the library of the Princess cruise ship Island Princess. The stories are long, very long, but they're classic Chandler, and it was fun to read stories that creative the foundation for his novels and for his narrator/protagonist, Phillip Marlowe.
July 5, 2018
Contos policiais mais interessantes : O Homem que gostava de cães ( o que possui o enredo mais original, principalmente por causa de Jerry) e Procure a rapariga ( o caso mais misterioso e que me lembra a série "Casos Arquivados ").
Não são policiais que nos preendem e supreendem como os da Agatha Christie
Não são policiais que nos preendem e supreendem como os da Agatha Christie
May 15, 2016
Although perhaps accurate to the time in which it is set, there is too much random killing, and EVERYONE is drinking way too much. I read probably 1/2 of the short stories and never found one that was engaging! Lots of deals under the table or off the radar, but I was never sure who was the good guy & who was the bad guy. I should have abandon it sooner!
March 2, 2010
Whatever you have to say about his plots, there is no short story writer more vivid than Chandler(at least at pulling you into a specific and detailed universe in just a few pages). It's heartbreaking to leave the characters when the stories are over.
August 21, 2024
I only read about one and a half of the novellas in here this time, what with one thing or another.
Chandler is one of the founders of the hardboiled noir detective genre, and it’s just a great ride. We’ve got all the genre conventions—dangerous ladies, cranky detectives who get beat up and roll over and keep going, sketchy drug deals and counterfeiting and of course murder. The works.
Chandler is master of the pithy and witty description, like Wodehouse and Pratchett.
Language has shifted a LOT since his day and a lot of his slang hits different. Yikes!
Chandler never once that I saw referred to a non-white character without an insult attached. 😵 So that’s a whole situation. If you ever wonder if racism back in the day was really that bad… yep. I would say he’s still worth reading in moderation, but as a historic point in time and keep your wits about you.
Chandler is one of the founders of the hardboiled noir detective genre, and it’s just a great ride. We’ve got all the genre conventions—dangerous ladies, cranky detectives who get beat up and roll over and keep going, sketchy drug deals and counterfeiting and of course murder. The works.
Chandler is master of the pithy and witty description, like Wodehouse and Pratchett.
Language has shifted a LOT since his day and a lot of his slang hits different. Yikes!
Chandler never once that I saw referred to a non-white character without an insult attached. 😵 So that’s a whole situation. If you ever wonder if racism back in the day was really that bad… yep. I would say he’s still worth reading in moderation, but as a historic point in time and keep your wits about you.
January 5, 2013
Really good read, with some better than others. Red Wind, Nevada Gas, Try The Girl were among the ones i can remember (at least the title) with I'll Be Waiting probably my favourite. A fun mixture of characters too. I'm glad for his novels they all became marlowe, but it was nice to have several options for the shorts. Not completely sure how i feel about his cannibalizing. If i had read the shorts first i probably wouldn't like it, but i knew beforehand novels were cannibalized. It was interesting to see the differences and such, with it being simple to line them up with their corresponding novel.
I was a bit overwhelmed by the end of it, i shall like to re-read it all, picking and choosing over a few weeks probably.
I was a bit overwhelmed by the end of it, i shall like to re-read it all, picking and choosing over a few weeks probably.
May 18, 2021
My first time actually reading short stories, great experience- had read all of Chandlers novels and understood some of his ideas were repeated in the novels- glad I read the novels first. This was a fun read, but I may not read any more short stories for a while, it was the author and the way he described the physical situation that made this very interesting.
May 7, 2016
It's better than 4 stars, but I couldn't quite justify giving it 5. My big regret is it is a library book and I had to get all 13,000 pages and all 25 short stories read in such a short period of time. I would have enjoyed it more if I could have read it over a longer period of time. Generally speaking I don't like short stories because, well, they are short. I like big thick novels where you really get to meet the characters and fall in love with them. However, Chandler's way with words is so awesome I didn't mind the meet-and-greet-and-move-on aspect. I started writing down some of his sentences because I knew I could never remember them all. There were so many I just wrote a few of the best. Here are just a few examples from my tiny sample. "Something prodded my back. It might have been a finger, but I didn't think it was." "As a bluff, mine was thinner than the gold on a week-end wedding ring." "He got out a billfold that was not quite as big as a bale of hay." "His own breathing was heavy enough to iron a shirt with." The amazing thing was Chandler never repeated a simile/metaphor/description. What kept me from giving this a 5-star rating was the similarity of so many of the stories. The detective got careless, got conked on the head, lost his gun - not once, but 2 or 3 times per story. I got so I wanted to yell at whichever detective it was: "Don't go in there!" Also, some of the plots got so convoluted I had to go back and re-read parts that went on before. Although most of the stories followed a similar outline, several were completely off the grid. A couple were along the lines of a Twilight Zone story and several had a completely different kind of sleuth. My favorite story was one of these - "Pearls Are a Nuisance." In addition to writing down great descriptive quotes, I also jotted down a few that are probably lost on younger generations. For example: "automatic elevator," "Then I dropped another nickel and dialed," "I pronged the receiver," "The hall was empty except for a milkman starting down the back stairs with his wiry tray of bottles."
December 9, 2020
A very interesting journey, watching Chandler's prose develop from his very first story (so chockablock with twists that the formula was painfully obvious) to his last (short) date with Marlowe in "The Pencil." I enjoyed this, especially when he stuck with what he knew: gritty, hardboiled crime/noir. He has 3 main detective characters: Philip Marlowe, Ted Carmady, and John Dalmas. They each have their own distinctive personalities and styles, so much so that I was surprised to see that the stories he based The Big Sleep and The Long Goodbye on were not Marlowe originals, but rather featured Carmady. Same with the titular "The Lady in the Lake," originally starring Dalmas. I'm curious now to read the novels and see what differences pop up between the original shorts and the longer versions.
Chandler's wanderings weren't all high notes for me. He plays fast and loose with paranormal/supernatural in "The Bronze Door" and "Professor Bingo's Snuff," both of which were not that great, IMO. The comedy of "Pearls are a Nuisance" fell completely flat for me, and "English Summer: A Gothic Romance" lays on the goth with a thick-bladed trowel. To me, he's at his best in the world of California-set crime noir, a world he made his own right from the start.
Chandler's wanderings weren't all high notes for me. He plays fast and loose with paranormal/supernatural in "The Bronze Door" and "Professor Bingo's Snuff," both of which were not that great, IMO. The comedy of "Pearls are a Nuisance" fell completely flat for me, and "English Summer: A Gothic Romance" lays on the goth with a thick-bladed trowel. To me, he's at his best in the world of California-set crime noir, a world he made his own right from the start.
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May 1, 2023It’s honestly a pretty draining prospect to read 26 Raymond Chandler stories. Here’s why: he was so remarkably consistent that the stories are thorough, thoughtful, a little repetitive–along a few common paths–, and they are long. Each of these stories is between about 45-60 pages (using Everyman Library pages at that), and so the grand total of 26 of his stories is about 1300 pages. And so I have been working on these a lot.
If there were more variety, I would be more excited by a lot of these, but there’s usually a murder, a blackmail, or an insurance scam. There’s Marlowe stories, which is great, and there are another set of stories using a different detective named Carmady, which is ok. And then there are the more random stories where Chandler creates a different world, which is the best.
Another goofy thing about the stories is how very detective! the stories are here. So for example the number of times the phrases “shamus” and “dick” are used is ridiculous. There’s also some uncomfortable racism thrown in against Mexicans, Black people, and Jewish people….so you know.
Anyway, the other thing I will tell you is that Chandler’s writing is very mature and polished from the get go. I think this is a result of his career not really getting started until he was in his mid-40s. In addition the stories are just not meant to be read in this format. They were published over about 10 years in a variety of magazines, and that difference in space and time I imagine that adds to their variety.
If there were more variety, I would be more excited by a lot of these, but there’s usually a murder, a blackmail, or an insurance scam. There’s Marlowe stories, which is great, and there are another set of stories using a different detective named Carmady, which is ok. And then there are the more random stories where Chandler creates a different world, which is the best.
Another goofy thing about the stories is how very detective! the stories are here. So for example the number of times the phrases “shamus” and “dick” are used is ridiculous. There’s also some uncomfortable racism thrown in against Mexicans, Black people, and Jewish people….so you know.
Anyway, the other thing I will tell you is that Chandler’s writing is very mature and polished from the get go. I think this is a result of his career not really getting started until he was in his mid-40s. In addition the stories are just not meant to be read in this format. They were published over about 10 years in a variety of magazines, and that difference in space and time I imagine that adds to their variety.
August 7, 2020
With this volume, I've read all of Mr. Chandler's fiction and most of his nonfiction. This one's got all of his short stories, some of which were embiggened to become novels, others were robbed of scenes and plot threads to help fill out novels, and some are, well, some are just horrid highlights of his racist, misogynist, homophobic nature.
I love his writing style. Few people, I feel, match him when it comes to descriptions of nouns (people, places, things) or when it comes to the witty stichomythia. It wasn't until I read his novels through for the second time that I realized, he's not the greatest at plots. His style is good enough to make up for that. But, as much as I like his writing, I dislike the man equally.
Like I said, he's steeped deeply in all the -isms. While he was a product of his time, I'm not willing to forgive him for it. Nor am I willing to forget about his writing. See, Mr. Chandler is my most treasured example of being human. Far too often we hold up artists, sports stars, politicians, to unrealistic ideals. By ignoring their flaws, or unreasonably defending them, we do everyone a disservice. So I don't defend him when I come across an ignorant description or a terrible slur.
Because this collection showed me how far his writing skills developed and how stagnant his prejudices stayed over the course of his career.
I love his writing style. Few people, I feel, match him when it comes to descriptions of nouns (people, places, things) or when it comes to the witty stichomythia. It wasn't until I read his novels through for the second time that I realized, he's not the greatest at plots. His style is good enough to make up for that. But, as much as I like his writing, I dislike the man equally.
Like I said, he's steeped deeply in all the -isms. While he was a product of his time, I'm not willing to forgive him for it. Nor am I willing to forget about his writing. See, Mr. Chandler is my most treasured example of being human. Far too often we hold up artists, sports stars, politicians, to unrealistic ideals. By ignoring their flaws, or unreasonably defending them, we do everyone a disservice. So I don't defend him when I come across an ignorant description or a terrible slur.
Because this collection showed me how far his writing skills developed and how stagnant his prejudices stayed over the course of his career.
March 11, 2018
I've read most of Raymond Chandler's novels. He has a way of describing his surroundings that I find unmatched by any other writer I've read, from the drapes on the windows down to the pattern on the carpet. I don't have to use my imagination to fill in the gaps. That's good or bad depending on your point of view. I like it. Now, these short stories. They were both refreshing and nostalgic at the same time. Coming into them after the novels, I quickly realized that Raymond Chandler was an author who gleefully plagiarized himself! There are elements of most of these stories in his novels, plot lines from two or more stories combined into a novel, characters who are the same but different, places that are familiar. I could be specific, but I think you'll have more fun figuring it out for yourself. If you haven't read the novels yet, read this first. If you have, it will be like getting together with an old friend and reminiscing.
September 23, 2015
A neat collection that gathers up the stories left out of the Library of America edition. The omissions to that other book include the stories that Chandler "cannibalized" to write various novels, but they're still worth reading simply because they tend to end differently than the novels did and what Chandler changed from one version to the next is of interest. Fun highlights include "Professor Bingo's Snuff," "The Bronze Door," and "English Summer," none of which are detective stories per se, but continue to circle Chandler's preoccupations with murder, unhappy marriages, and crime in general. The first of those two are perhaps the most different of all the stories because of their supernatural elements which are handled rather matter of factly, just another thing someone might use to bump a guy off.
June 19, 2020
A collection of repetitive, unclear, and unsatisfying short stories. The storylines are so monotonously similar that the titles could be switched without changing anything. Furthermore, the plots are so packed with characters and incident that it's hard to tell what's important, or even what's going on. It took me a while to realize that that these aren't really short stories at all, they're actually novels compressed into a few pages. Chandler as much as admitted this when he took several of them and remade them into novels. As a result, they fail as short stories. The much-vaunted Chandler prose is occasionally interesting, but overall this book just confirmed my opinion that this is another example of an author whose reputation outstrips his talent.
August 11, 2016
Spent the longest time reading this book. I love Raymond Chandler, but this book confirms that he felt more comfortable writing actual novels to short stories. I know this because he writes in one of his prologues. Many of the earlier stories are a bit of a tryout for longer versions to be done later on. In others, he tries to give a distinctive voice to his varied narrators. Some times he does this better than others. But as a whole, this collection is top notch because even a few good Chandler short stories is so much better than a collection by any similar writer.
November 5, 2012
One and a half stories in and I'm hooked. I've read that the early stories are not up to the later stuff and I suppose they are a bit more linier but the magic of the language and the description of scenes , people and action are very familiar. A thought - I think it's best to read the novels first - some later stories include plot points and scenes cannibalised for use in the novels and I think that might detract from their enjoyment. I haven't come to any of these passages yet but I imagine it won't have the same spoiler effect in a short story ... anyway - I'll see.
July 22, 2015
One of a handful of books I've bought more than once, and read many times, Collected Stories recently returned to my bedside table. The format is the main selling point here: the ability to dive into a Chandler world for 50 pages and then do it again the next day. A handful of the stories will seem familiar, which is because Chandler recycled certain plots or plot elements for his novels -- I'd recommend reading them first -- but the pleasures are no less visceral.
August 23, 2007
Just picked this up. Really enjoyed reading Chandler on the train rides to/from work last winter. Don't know why, since the stories always seem to be set in southern Cal, but reading him during the winter felt like a good fit. Sort of like I can only listen to Van Halen during the summer. So I'll look forward to picking this up in 4-6 months, I'm guessing...
November 11, 2009
Having all of his short fiction, what is there to say about the contents?
As for the edition, I seems that, for a hardback, the pages are too small, which made it necessary for the publisher to bring it to 1200 pages. So what you have is a small, thick edition, which kind of makes it an awkward read.
The introduction is quite good, but not written by Chandler.
As for the edition, I seems that, for a hardback, the pages are too small, which made it necessary for the publisher to bring it to 1200 pages. So what you have is a small, thick edition, which kind of makes it an awkward read.
The introduction is quite good, but not written by Chandler.
June 23, 2013
The very definition of hard-boiled, this collection of short fiction is my first time reading any of Raymond Chandler's work. It's clear that Chandler was a very significant influence on Frank Miller's Sin City series of graphic novels and fans of the genre are better off for it.
Booze, broads and bullets indeed.
Booze, broads and bullets indeed.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 77 reviews