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The pieces in this collection show the creator of Phillip Marlowe to be a sensitive and thoughtful man, though someone who seemed to like nothing more than speaking his mind. Chandler kept up lively correspondences with friends and in his letters he comments with true candor on books, films, people, and the characters he created. In one priceless letter he berates a publisher over the cover of an edition of
Farewell, My Lovely: "The bedspring shown in your cover illustration is entirely wrong, since it is a type of spring which is very light and would be useless as a weapon ..." And with that, he's only getting started. In excerpts from his notebooks he holds forth on writing, and one of the masters of the hardboiled mystery passes along much working knowledge of his craft. Chandler's essay "Writers In Hollywood," which first appeared in the
Atlantic Monthly in 1945, holds up wonderfully (though if published today it would require the addition of some zeros to the figures Chandler cites).
Raymond Chandler Speaking is a small treasure house of lively thoughts and crisp prose.
From Library Journal
There has been a remarkable resurgence of interest in Chandler in recent years. He is now included in the prestigious Library of America series (Classic Returns, LJ 9/15/95), and the first major biography on him in 20 years was recently published (LJ 4/1/97). This 1962 volume collects a wide number of Chandler's personal letters from 1950 to 1959, divided by subject?e.g., Chandler on mystery, on publishing?plus the opening chapters of The Poodle Springs Story, a Philip Marlowe novel left unfinished at the time of Chandler's death and which was ultimately completed by Robert B. Parker (LJ 7/89). His letters reveal him to be a witty yet softspoken and scholarly man?not at all what you'd expect of a hard-boiled mystery author. Essential for all Chandler hounds.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.
