First edition. Original grey cloth printed in black and dark grey in pictorial dustwrapper. A very good copy, the cloth slightly faded with a couple of faint stains and occasional marginal foxing, in a very good (price clipped) dustwrapper with a little wear to the spine ends and corners, a small chip to the head of the spine, not affecting any lettering and neat repairs to tears to the folds of the rear panel and flap. A very nice copy of a book now seldom encountered in an unrestored dustwrapper.

A seminal work of golden age detective fiction introducing the primary American detective of the period, Sam Spade. In style it is quite different to the cosy English counterparts. Hammett represented the early realistic vein in detective stories. His tough heroes confront the violence with full knowledge of its corrupting potential. In his novels Hammett painted a mean picture of an American society, where greed, brutality, and treachery are the major driving forces behind human actions.
Hammett's two previous novels of 1929 revolved round an unnamed detective known as The Continental Op, and were based mainly on his own experiences working for Pinkertons. In Sam Spade, however, Hammett created a more rounded, identifiable character. His language was unsentimental, journalistic, and moral judgements were left to the reader. The first-person narration of the Op stories is left behind and Hammett views the detective protagonist in the book from the outside.
The novel was filmed three times most memorably starring Humphrey Bogart as Spade.
"A novel in which every character is trying to deceive all the others and in which the truth slowly becomes visible through the haze of deception." (Andre Gide)

A Haycraft Queen Cornerstone

Stock ID: 45444