RARA-AVIS: Chandler's COLLECTED STORIES

From: William Denton ( buff@pobox.com)
Date: 10 Mar 2003


For the record, and in case you were curious, here are the contents of Raymond Chandler's COLLECTED STORIES (Everyman's Library, 2002):

        Blackmailers Don't Shoot
        Smart-Aleck Kill
        Finger Man
    * Killer in the Rain
        Nevada Gas
        Spanish Blood
        Guns at Cyrano's
    * The Man Who Liked Dogs
        Pickup on Noon Street
        Goldfish
    * The Curtain
    * Try the Girl
    * Mandarin's Jade
        Red Wind
        The King in Yellow
    * Bay City Blues
    * The Lady in the Lake
        Pearls are a Nuisance
        Trouble is My Business
        I'll Be waiting
        The Bronze Door
    * No Crime in the Mountains
        Professor Bingo's Snuff (1951)
        The Pencil (1959)
        English Summer (posthumously, 1976)

All but the last three were published between 1933-1941, mostly in BLACK MASK and DIME DETECTIVE MAGAZINE. Asterisks mark the ones he'd cannabilized and didn't allow to be reprinted; you had to find a copy of KILLER IN THE RAIN (Hamish Hamilton, 1964; Penguin, 1966 and on) to read them. Now they're all there in one volume, with three other stories that were really hard to find. The recent Library of America two-volume set only collects the easy-to-find short stories. (Left uncollected were some early poetry and some other things.)

Just to refresh your memory, here's the first paragraph of "Red Wind:"

| There was a desert wind blowing that night. It was one of those hot
| dry Santa Anas that come down through the mountain passes and curl your
| hair and make your nerves jump and your skin itch. On nights like that
| every booze party ends in a fight. Meek little wives feel the edge of
| the carving knife and study their husband's necks. Anything can happen.
| You can even get a full glass of beer at a cocktail lounge

And some dialogue a page later, when Marlowe's talking to the young bartender who'd given him the full glass:

| The kid said: "I don't like drunks in the first place and in the
| second place I don't like them getting drunk in here, and in the third
| place I don't like them in the first place."
| "Warner Brothers could use that," I said.
| "They did."

Bill

-- 
William Denton : Toronto, Canada : http://www.miskatonic.org/ : Caveat lector.

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