Raymond Chandler

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Raymond Thornton Chandler (born July 23, 1888 in Chicago , Illinois , † March 26, 1959 in La Jolla , California ) was an American writer and is considered one of the pioneers of American hardboiled novels .

Raymond Chandler invented the character of the melancholy and ultimately moral private detective Philip Marlowe for his crime novels . In addition to his detective novels, he wrote a number of short stories and screenplays. Along with Dashiell Hammett, he is one of the great authors of the black series in American crime novels.

Life

Raymond Chandler was born on July 23, 1888, the son of the engineer Maurice Benjamin Chandler and Florence Dart Chandler, b. Thornton, born in Chicago. Both were Quakers . The father was from Philadelphia and the mother was from Waterford, Ireland. His father left the family for another woman; In 1895 his parents divorced and Chandler moved to England with his mother. From 1900 to 1905 Chandler attended Dulwich College in south-west London , where he first developed an interest in foreign languages ​​and classical philology . He spent the next two years preparing for the entrance exam for the British Civil Service in France, where he attended a business school in Paris , and in Germany with private tuition.

In 1907, Chandler passed the exam as third best of a total of 600 candidates. He worked for half a year in the British Ministry of the Navy ( Admiralty ) and, after his departure, sporadically as a substitute teacher at Dulwich College . The encounter with the only slightly older Richard Barham Middleton is said to have influenced him strongly to pursue a career as a writer. From 1908 Raymond Chandler worked as a reporter in London for the Daily Express, then as a freelance journalist for the liberal evening newspaper The Westminster Gazette and the weekend magazine The Academy , where he published reports, reviews, satirical sketches and essays. A total of 27 poems appeared in Chambers' Journal , The Westminster Gazette, The Academy and The Spectator during this period .

In 1912 he returned to the United States. Via St. Louis, Missouri, and Omaha, Nebraska, Chandler finally landed in California, where he found work on an apricot plantation and in a sporting goods company. The following year, he completed a three-year accounting course in six weeks. In the Los Angeles Creamery dairy , he applied his newly acquired knowledge as an accountant. In 1917, Chandler volunteered in the Canadian Army with the Canadian Gordon Highlanders to fight on the Entente side in World War I.

Chandler served in France and England ( Royal Flying Corps ) until 1919 . In 1919 he returned to California with his mother. In 1924 he married Pearl Cecily Bowen , née Hurlburt, who was 18 years his senior , and thus entered into her third marriage. Until 1932 he had various occupations. a. Director of several independent oil companies.

Chandler lost the lucrative job at the oil company and subsequently completely reoriented himself. So he decided to dedicate himself to writing crime stories from now on. In 1933 , Chandler's first short story ("Blackmailers Don't Shoot") appeared in the journal Black Mask , which had established itself as a series product for short crime novels. In the years that followed, other stories appeared in similar magazines. Chandler worked this to a certain extent the craft to later write larger detective novels. He later turned some of the material published as short stories into novels .

The first novel The Big Sleep , which was used as a template for the film of the same name (Eng. " Dead sleep tight "), appeared in 1939 and was a great success. In 1943 Chandler went to Hollywood as a screenwriter , where he first wrote the Oscar- nominated screenplay for Double Indemnity ( Woman Without a Conscience ) with Billy Wilder . He has also written, among other things also Oscar-nominated screenplay for the Alan Ladd / Veronica Lake -Klassiker The Blue Dahlia ( The Blue Dahlia ). However, working in Hollywood did not satisfy Chandler. The squint seems to have narrowed the audience success Chandler too much, which is why there were more conflicts with directors and producers. Chandler published a number of novels, among which "The Long Good-Bye" has a prominent position. With him, Chandler seems to have reached the climax of his concept of the detective novel: As the best novel of the year, the Mystery Writers of America honored him in 1955 with the Edgar Allan Poe Award (category best novel ). The last two novels, "Playback" and "Poodle Springs" (unfinished), no longer achieve the quality of the previous works by far.

Chandler's wife died in December 1954. Chandler threatened suicide several times in the months that followed. In February 1955 he tried to shoot himself in the shower, but the attempt failed. He then sold his house in La Jolla and traveled to London. Chandler stayed for several months. He also returned several times in the following years and lived alternately in the USA and England. Chandler started drinking after his wife died. In 1956, he was first hospitalized for his alcoholism. In the years that followed, he repeatedly sought medical treatment. In 1959, Raymond Chandler fell seriously ill. He died on March 26, 1959 in La Jolla, California.

Works

Novels

  • The Big Sleep (1939) (Eng. The deep sleep , 1950, The big sleep , 1974, 1980, 2013)
  • Farewell, My Lovely (1940) (German cheated and atoned for , 1958, Farewell, my darling , 1980)
  • The High Window (1942) (Eng. The High Window , 1952, 1980)
  • The Lady in the Lake (1943) (German One Knows More , 1949, Die Tote im See , 1980)
  • The Little Sister (1949) (Eng. The Little Sister , 1953, 1975)
  • The Long Good-Bye (1953) (German: The Long Farewell , 1954, 1975; also as Ullstein-TB)
  • Playback (1958) (German game in the dark , 1958 and Playback , 1980)
  • Poodle Springs (fragment) completed by Robert B. Parker ( Poodle Springs , 1989 German: lonely class 1990)

Detective short stories

  • Blackmailers Don't Shoot (In: Black Mask , 1933)
  • Smart-Aleck Kill (In: Black Mask , 1934)
  • Finger Man (In: Black Mask , 1934)
  • Killer in the Rain (In: Black Mask , 1935)
  • Nevada Gas (In: Black Mask , 1935)
  • Spanish Blood (In: Black Mask , 1935)
  • Guns at Cyrano's (In: Black Mask , 1936)
  • The Man Who Liked Dogs (In: Black Mask , 1936)
  • Noon Street Nemesis (In: Detective Fiction Weekly , 1936)
  • Goldfish (In: Black Mask , 1936)
  • The Curtain (In: Black Mask , 1936)
  • Try the Girl (In: Black Mask , 1937)
  • Mandarin's Jade (In: Dime Detective , 1937)
  • Red Wind (In: Dime Detective , 1938)
  • The King in Yellow (In: Dime Detective , 1938)
  • Bay City Blues (In: Dime Detective , 1938)
  • The Lady in the Lake (In: Dime Detective , 1939)
  • Pearls Are a Nuisance (In: Dime Detective , 1939)
  • Trouble is My Business (In: Dime Detective , 1939)
  • I'll Be Waiting (In: Saturday Evening Post , 1939)
  • No Crime in the Mountains (In: Detective Story , 1941)
  • Marlowe Takes on the Syndicate (also: The Pencil In: London Daily Mail , 1959)
  • Two Stories: Professor Bingo's Snuff / The Bronze Door (Two Scary Stories)

Edited volumes of short crime stories

  • Trouble Is My Business (dt. Danger Is My Business , 1959)
  • The Finger Man
  • Red wind
  • Killer in the Rain (dt. Murder in the Rain , 1976)
  • The Simple Art of Murder ( The King in Yellow , 1961)

Essays, letters

  • The Simple Art of Murder (1950)
(Eng. The simple art of murder , 1975)
  • Raymond Chandler Speaking (1962)
(Eng. Chandler on Chandler. Letters, essays, fragments , 1965)
  • The Notebooks of Raymond Chandler and "English Summer", a Gothic Novel (1976)
(Excerpts from German in: English Summer , 1980; new as notebooks , 2009)
  • Selected Letters (edited by Frank McShane, 1981)
(German letters 1937–1959 , transferred by Hans Wollschläger , 1990)

Scripts

unrealized:

  • The Innocent Mrs. Duff (Paramount 1946)
  • Playback (Universal 1947/48)

Film adaptations

Chandler's novels have repeatedly served as models for crime films . Some of these films became classics of film noir .

  • 1942: Time to Kill - Director: Herbert I. Leeds - based on: The High Window
  • 1942: The Falcon Takes Over - directed by Irving Reis - based on: Farewell, My Lovely
  • 1944: Murder, My Sweet - Director: Edward Dmytryk - based on: Farewell, My Lovely
  • 1946: Dead sleep tight ( The Big Sleep ) - Director: Howard Hawks - based on: The Big Sleep
  • 1946: Die Dame im See ( Lady in the Lake ) - Director: Robert Montgomery - based on: The Lady in the Lake
  • 1947: The Brasher Doubloon - Director: John Brahm - based on: The High Window
  • 1968: The third in ambush ( Marlowe ) - based on: The Little Sister
  • 1973: Death Knows No Return ( The Long Goodbye ) - Director: Robert Altman - based on: The Long Good-bye
  • 1975: Farewell, My Lovely ( Farewell, My Lovely ) - Director: Dick Richards - by: Farewell, My Lovely
  • 1978: Dead sleep better ( The Big Sleep ) - Director: Michael Winner - based on: The Big Sleep
  • 1995: Perfect Crimes - Template for the 2nd episode of the 1st season: Short story I'll Be Waiting
  • 1995: Perfect Crimes - Template for the 9th episode of the 2nd season: the short story Red Wind
  • 1998: Poodle Springs - Template: story fragment

Secondary literature

  • Thomas Degering: Raymond Chandler. With personal testimonies and picture documents (= Rowohlt's monographs. 377). Rowohlt, Reinbek near Hamburg 1989, ISBN 3-499-50377-8 .
  • Tom Hiney: Raymond Chandler. A biography. Chatto & Windus, London 1997, ISBN 0-7011-6310-0 .
  • Fredric Jameson : Raymond Chandler: The Detections of Totality . Verso, London and New York 2015, ISBN 9781784782160 .
  • Frank MacShane: The Life of Raymond Chandler. EP Dutton, New York NY 1976, ISBN 0-525-14552-4 (In German: Raymond Chandler. Eine Biographie. Diogenes, Zurich 2009, ISBN 978-3-257-06708-8 ).
  • Tom Williams: Raymond Chandler. A life. A Mysterious Something in the Light. Aurum, London 2012, ISBN 978-1-84513-526-3 .

Web links

Wikiquote: Raymond Chandler  - Quotes

Remarks

  1. ^ Raymond Chandler: Raymond Chandler Speaking , Dorothy Gardiner, Kathrine Sorley Walker (Eds.), P. 24, Houghton Mifflin Company , 1962, ISBN 978-0-520-20835-3 .
  2. ^ Trans. Mary Brand, Nest Verlag, Nuremberg http://d-nb.info/450768333
  3. ^ Translated from Gunar Ortlepp, Diogenes, Zurich http://d-nb.info/740265911
  4. ^ Trans. Hans Wollschläger , Diogenes, Zurich http://d-nb.info/800597982
  5. ^ Ill. Thomas M. Müller , Edition Büchergilde, Frankfurt http://d-nb.info/1028676131
  6. ↑ Übers. Georg Kahn-Ackermann , Desch Verlag, Munich http://d-nb.info/450768228
  7. ↑ Übers. Wulf Teichmann, Verlag Volk und Welt, Berlin, http://d-nb.info/800299094
  8. ^ Trans. Mary Brand, Nest Verlag, Nuremberg http://d-nb.info/450768376
  9. ↑ Übers. Urs Widmer , Diogenes-Verlag, Zurich http://d-nb.info/800597974
  10. ↑ Übers. Mary Brand, Nest Verlag, Nuremberg http://d-nb.info/450768260 , this translation from 1967 also as Die Frau im See . The New Berlin http://d-nb.info/456263705 .
  11. ↑ trans. Hellmuth Karasek , Diogenes, Zurich http://d-nb.info/800598008
  12. ↑ Übers. Peter Fischer, Nest Verlag, Nuremberg http://d-nb.info/450768309
  13. ^ Translated from Walter E. Richartz , Diogenes, Zurich http://d-nb.info/750280700
  14. ↑ shortened. Translated by Peter Fischer, Nest, Nuremberg http://d-nb.info/450768236
  15. ↑ Unabridged. Translated by Hans Wollschläger, Diogenes, Zurich http://d-nb.info/750371137
  16. ^ Translated from Georg Kahn-Ackermann, Desch, Munich http://d-nb.info/450768295
  17. ↑ Übers. Wulf Teichmann, Diogenes-Verlag, Zurich http://d-nb.info/800598024
  18. ^ Trans. Sven Böttcher , Knaus, Munich http://d-nb.info/900590300
personal data
SURNAME Chandler, Raymond
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Chandler, Raymond Thornton (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American crime novelist
DATE OF BIRTH July 23, 1888
PLACE OF BIRTH Chicago , Illinois
DATE OF DEATH March 26, 1959
Place of death La Jolla , California