During a period of twenty years--from his start as a young writer for H. L. Mencken's classic pulp magazine The Black Mask in the early 1930s, through the publication of his novels The Big Sleep and Farewell, My Lovely, to his career as a Hollywood screenwriter in the 1940s--Raymond Chandler kept a series of private notebooks.Drawn from those journals, The Notebooks of Raymond Chandler offers an intimate view of the writer at work, revealing early ideas, descriptions, and anecdotes that would later be used in The Long Goodbye, The Blue Dahlia, and other classics.Filled with both public and private writings, The Notebooks of Raymond Chandler includes "Marlowesque" particulars such as pickpocket lingo, San Quentin jailhouse slang, a "Note on the Tommygun," and musings on "Craps." Here, too, are surprising, lesser known essays on Hollywood, the mystery story, British and American writing, and a wicked parody of Hemingway. This sampler--by turns whimsical, provocative, irreverent, and fascinating--also contains a list of possible story titles; "Chandlerisms;" and his short work "English Summer: A Gothic Romance," which the writer viewed as a turning point in his career.

Pearson English Readers bring language learning to life through the joy of reading. Well-written stories entertain us, make us think, and keep our interest page after page. Pearson English Readers offer teenage and adult learners a huge range of titles, all featuring carefully graded language to make them accessible to learners of all abilities. Through the imagination of some of the world's greatest authors, the English language comes to life in pages of our Readers. Students have the pleasure and satisfaction of reading these stories in English, and at the same time develop a broader vocabulary, greater comprehension and reading fluency, improved grammar, and greater confidence and ability to express themselves. Find out more at english.com/readers

Raymond Chandler created the fast talking, trouble seeking Californian private eye Philip Marlowe for his first great novel The Big Sleep in 1939. Marlowe's entanglement with the Sternwood family - and an attendant cast of colourful underworld figures - is the background to a story reflecting all the tarnished glitter of the great American Dream. The hard-boiled detective's iconic image burns just as brightly in Farewell My Lovely, on the trail of a missing nightclub crooner.

When a dying millionaire hires Philip Marlowe to handle the blackmailer of one of his two troublesome daughters, Marlowe finds himself involved with more than extortion. Kidnapping, pornography, seduction, and murder are just a few of the complications he gets caught up in.

"Chandler [writes] like a slumming angel and invest[s] the sun-blinded streets of Los Angelos with a romantic presence."
--Ross Macdonald

'I was neat, clean, shaved and sober, and I didn't care who knew it. I was everything the well-dressed private detective ought to be. I was calling on four million dollars.' Los Angeles Private Investigator Philip Marlowe is hired by wheelchair-bound General Sternwood to discover who is blackmailing him. A broken, weary old man, Sternwood just wants Marlowe to make the problem go away. However, with Sternwood's two wild, devil-may-care daughters prowling LA's seedy backstreets, Marlowe's got his work cut out. And that's before he stumbles over the first corpse. The Big Sleep is Raymond Chandler's first novel featuring laconic PI Philip Marlowe. 'One of the greatest crime writers, who set standards others still try to attain' Sunday Times 'Chandler grips the mind from the first sentence' Daily Telegraph 'One of the greatest crime writers, who set standards others still try to attain' Sunday Times 'Chandler is an original stylist, creator of a character as immortal as Sherlock Holmes' Anthony Burgess Discover the newest addition to the inimitable Philip Marlowe series - Only to Sleep by Lawrence Osborne - out 6 September 2018 in hardback and ebook from Hogarth.

Creator of the famous Philip Marlowe, Raymond Chandler elevated the American hard-boiled detective genre to an art form. Chandler's last four novels, published here in one volume, offer ample opportunity to savor the unique and utterly compelling fictional world that made his works modern classics.

THE LADY IN THE LAKE moves Marlowe out of his usual habitat of city streets and into the mountains outside of Los Angeles in his strange search for a missing woman. THE LITTLE SISTER takes Marlowe to Hollywood, where he tries to find a sweet young thing's missing brother, uncovering on the way a little blackmail, a lot of drugs, and more than enough murder. In THE LONG GOODBYE, a case involving a war-scarred drunk and his nymphomaniac wife has Marlowe constantly on the move: a psychotic gangster's on his trail, he's in trouble with the cops, and more and more corpses keep turning up. PLAYBACK features a well-endowed redhead who leads Marlowe to the California coast to solve a tale of big money and, of course, murder.

Throughout these masterpieces, Marlowe's wry humor and existential sense of his job prove yet again why he has become one of the most recognized and imitated characters in fiction.

The only complete edition of stories by the undisputed master of detective literature, collected here for the first time in one volume, including some stories that have been unavailable for decades.

When Raymond Chandler turned to writing at the age of forty-five, he began by publishing stories in pulp magazines such as Black Mask before later writing his famous novels. These stories are where Chandler honed his art and developed his uniquely vivid underworld, peopled with good cops and bad cops, informers and extortionists, lethally predatory blondes and redheads, and crime, sex, gambling, and alcohol in abundance. In addition to his classic hard-boiled stories—in which his signature atmosphere of depravity and violence swirls around the cool, intuitive loners whose type culminated in the famous detective Philip Marlowe—Chandler also turned his hand to fantasy and even a gothic romance. This rich treasury of 25 stories shows Chandler developing the terse, laconic, understated style that would serve him so well in his later masterpieces, and immerses the reader in the richly realized fictional universe that has become an enduring part of our literary landscape.

These two classic novels featuring private eye Philip Marlowe made Raymond Chandler's name synonymous with America's hard-boiled school of crime fiction.  The Big Sleep was an instant success when first published in 1939.  It centers around a paralyzed California millionaire with two psychopathic daughters; he involves Marlowe in a case of blackmail that turns into murder.

Farewell My Lovely, which Chandler regarded as his finest work, came out the following year.  It has Marlowe dealing with the Los Angeles gambling circuit, a murder he stumbles upon, and three very beautiful but potentially deadly women.
"Chandler writes like a slumming angel and invests the sun-blinded streets of Los Angeles with a romantic presence," said Ross Macdonald.  And George V. Higgins wrote:  "Chandler is fun to read.  He's as bleak as tundra, and his dirtbag characters far outnumber his stellar citizens, but Philip Marlowe is a laconic tour guide through a zoo of truly interesting animals."

'I need a man good-looking enough to pick up a dame who has a sense of class, but he's got to be tough enough to swap punches with a power shovel.' In the first of the four cases in Trouble is My Business, Los Angeles PI Philip Marlowe is offered a job that leaves a bad taste in the mouth: smearing a girl who's 'got her hooks into a rich man's pup'. Before too long Marlowe's up to his neck in corpses and cops and he's taken pity on the girl. There's nothing like making trouble out of your business . . . The four novellas collected here are quintessential Raymond Chandler: slick, crystal-clear writing that pins the reader to the seat and won't let go until the last page is turned. 'Age does not wither Chandler's prose' Literary Review 'Chandler's prose flies off the pages like a burst from a Tommy gun. Chandler was perhaps the finest exponent of the fledgling genre now known as pulp fiction' Scottish Field 'One of the greatest crime writers, who set the standards others still try to attain' Sunday Times 'Nobody can write like Chandler on his home turf, not even Faulkner . . . An original . . . A great artist' Boston Review 'Raymond Chandler invented a new way of talking about America, and America has never looked the same to us since' Paul Auster Discover the newest addition to the inimitable Philip Marlowe series - Only to Sleep by Lawrence Osborne - out 6 September 2018 in hardback and ebook from Hogarth.

Marlowe's about to give up on a completely routine case when he finds himself in the wrong place at the right time to get caught up in a murder that leads to a ring of jewel thieves, another murder, a fortune-teller, a couple more murders, and more corruption than your average graveyard.

Hard-boiled detective fiction at its best: Raymond Chandler's best loved novel, The Big Sleep, published as a Penguin Essential for the first time. 'I was neat, clean, shaved and sober, and I didn't care who knew it. I was everything the well-dressed private detective ought to be. I was calling on four million dollars.' Los Angeles PI Philip Marlowe is hired by wheelchair-bound General Sternwood to discover who is indulging in some petty blackmail. A weary, old man, Sternwood just wants the problem to go away. But Marlowe finds he has his work cut out just keeping Sternwood's wild, devil-may-care daughters out of trouble as they prowl LA's dirtiest and darkest streets. And pretty soon, he's up to his neck in hoodlums and corpses . . .

'So you need help. What's your name and trouble?' Private Investigator Philip Marlowe's latest client is Orfamay Quest. She's come all the way from Manhattan, Kansas, to find her missing brother Orrin. Or at least that's what she tells Marlowe, offering him just twenty dollars for his trouble. Feeling charitable, Marlowe accepts - though it's not long before he wishes he hadn't. Soon the trail leads to a succession of Hollywood starlets, uppity gangsters, suspicious cops and corpses with ice picks jammed into their necks . . . The Little Sister is Raymond Chandler's fifth novel featuring laconic PI Philip Marlowe. 'Marlowe remains the quintessential urban private eye' Los Angeles Times 'Chandler grips the mind from the first sentence' Daily Telegraph 'One of the greatest crime writers, who set standards others still try to attain' Sunday Times 'Chandler is an original stylist, creator of a character as immortal as Sherlock Holmes' Anthony Burgess Discover the newest addition to the inimitable Philip Marlowe series - Only to Sleep by Lawrence Osborne - out 6 September 2018 in hardback and ebook from Hogarth.

Playback is Raymond Chandler's gripping last full-length novel featuring laconic PI Philip Marlowe. 'Chandler invented a new way of talking about America, and America has never looked the same to us since' Paul Auster Los Angeles PI Philip Marlowe is mixing business with pleasure - he's getting paid to follow a lovely mysterious redhead called Eleanor King. And wherever Miss King goes, trouble is sure to follow. But she's easy on the eye and Marlowe's happy to do as he's told. But one dead body later and what started out as a lazy afternoon's snooping soon becomes a deadly cocktail of blackmail, lies, mistaken identity - and murder . . . 'Chandler grips the mind from the first sentence' Daily Telegraph 'One of the greatest crime writers, who set standards others still try to attain' Sunday Times 'Chandler is an original stylist, creator of a character as immortal as Sherlock Holmes' Anthony Burgess

A CLASSIC NOVEL BY THE MASTER OF HARD-BOILED CRIME, THE HIGH WINDOW IS RAYMOND CHANDLER'S THIRD STORY FEATURING LACONIC PI PHILIP MARLOWE. 'He lay crumpled on his back. Very lonely, very dead. The safe door was wide open. A metal drawer was pulled out. It was empty now. There may have been money in it once.' Los Angeles PI Philip Marlowe's on a case: his client, a dried-up husk of a woman, wants him to recover a rare gold coin called a Brasher Doubloon, missing from her late husband's collection. That's the simple part. It becomes more complicated when Marlowe finds that everyone who handles the coin suffers a run of very bad luck: they always end up dead. That's also unlucky for a private investigator, because leaving a trail of corpses around LA puts cops' noses seriously out of joint. If Marlowe doesn't wrap this one up fast, he's going to end up either in jail or in a wooden box in the ground . . . 'Chandler's books should be read and judged, not as escapist literature, but as works of art' W.H. Auden 'Chandler grips the mind from the first sentence' Daily Telegraph 'One of the greatest crime writers, who set standards others still try to attain' Sunday Times 'Chandler is an original stylist, creator of a character as immortal as Sherlock Holmes' Anthony Burgess

'Everything was quiet and sunny and calm. No cause for excitement whatever. It's only Marlowe, finding another body. He does it rather well by now. Murder-a-day Marlowe, they call him . . .' Private Investigator Philip Marlowe is hired to find a missing woman. Derace Kingsley's wife ran away to Mexico to get a divorce and marry a hunk named Chris Lavery. Or so the note she left her husband says. Trouble is, when Philip Marlowe asks Lavery about it he denies everything. But when Marlowe next encounters Lavery, he's denying nothing - on account of the two bullet holes in his heart. Now Marlowe's on the trail of a killer, who leads him out of smoggy Los Angeles all the way to a murky mountain lake . . . The Lady in the Lake is Raymond Chandler's fourth novel featuring laconic PI Philip Marlowe. 'Chandler's best novels carry the crime story to levels of artistry that have rarely been matched' Daily Mail 'Chandler grips the mind from the first sentence' Daily Telegraph 'One of the greatest crime writers, who set standards others still try to attain' Sunday Times 'Chandler is an original stylist, creator of a character as immortal as Sherlock Holmes' Anthony Burgess

A couple of missing wives—one a rich man's and one a poor man's—become the objects of Marlowe's investigation. One of them may have gotten a Mexican divorce and married a gigolo and the other may be dead. Marlowe's not sure he cares about either one, but he's not paid to care.

"The most consistent of all series in terms of language control, length, and quality of story." David R. Hill, Director of the Edinburgh Project on Extensive Reading.

A classic novel by Raymond Chandler, the master of hard-boiled crime, The Long Good-Bye is the sixth novel featuring laconic PI Philip Marlowe Down-and-out drunk Terry Lennox has a problem: his millionaire wife is dead and he needs to get out of LA fast. So he turns to his only friend in the world: Philip Marlowe, Private Investigator. He's willing to help a man down on his luck, but later, Lennox commits suicide in Mexico and things start to turn nasty. Marlowe finds himself drawn into a sordid crowd of adulterers and alcoholics in LA's Idle Valley, where the rich are suffering one big suntanned hangover. Marlowe is sure Lennox didn't kill his wife, but how many more stiffs will turn up before he gets to the truth? 'Anything Chandler writes about grips the mind from the first sentence' Daily Telegraph 'One of the greatest crime writers, who set standards others still try to attain' Sunday Times 'Chandler is an original stylist, creator of a character as immortal as Sherlock Holmes' Anthony Burgess

'I needed a drink, I needed a lot of life insurance, I needed a vacation, I needed a home in the country. What I had was a coat, a hat and a gun. I put them on and went out of the room' Cynical Los Angeles Private Investigator Philip Marlowe always falls for a sob story. Eight years ago Moose Malloy and cute little redhead Velma were getting married - until Malloy was framed for armed robbery. Now he's out and he wants Velma back. Marlowe meets Malloy one hot day in Hollywood and, out of the generosity of his jaded heart, agrees to help. Dragged from one smoky bar to another, Marlowe's search for Velma turns up plenty of gangsters with a nasty habit of shooting first and talking later. And soon what started as a search for a missing person becomes a matter of life and death . . . Farewell, My Lovely is Raymond Chandler's second novel featuring laconic PI Philip Marlowe. 'Chandler grips the mind from the first sentence' Daily Telegraph 'One of the greatest crime writers, who set standards others still try to attain' Sunday Times 'Chandler is an original stylist, creator of a character as immortal as Sherlock Holmes' Anthony Burgess Discover the newest addition to the inimitable Philip Marlowe series - Only to Sleep by Lawrence Osborne - out 6 September 2018 in hardback and ebook from Hogarth.

A movie starlet with a gangster boyfriend and a pair of siblings with a shared secret lure Marlowe into the less than glamorous and more than a little dangerous world of Hollywood fame. Chandler's first foray into the industry that dominates the company town that is Los Angeles.