RARA-AVIS: Re: William Nolan's Hammett: A Casebook + Ross Macdonald

From: JIM DOHERTY (jimdohertyjr@yahoo.com)
Date: 09 Jun 2009

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    Vince,

    One minor disagreement with your comprehensive, and mostly accurate, comments about DASHIELL HAMMETT - A CASEBOOK. Re your comment below:

    "When William F. Nolan's book 'Dashiell Hammett: A Casebook' was published in 1969, it was the first book on Hammett. It won the Edgar Award for Best Biographical/ Critical Book of the Year."

    Actually, the "Best Critical/Biographical" category wasn't established as a regular category, per se, until 1976, when Steinbrenner and Penzler's ENCYCLOPEDIA OF MYSTERY AND DETECTION won.

    DASHIELL HAMMETT - A CASEBOOK was awarded a "Special Edgar" for being a significant cotribution to the genre. The proliferation of books like it, and Julian Symons's MORTAL CONSEQUENCES (aka BLOODY MURDER), which also won a non-categorical "Special Edgar," contributed to the establishment of a regular Crit/Bio category.

    JIM DOHERTY
    "The Infallible One"

          

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