MARC Record from Library of Congress

LEADER: 02256cam a2200301 i 4500
001 2013041870
003 DLC
005 20150811081549.0
008 131021s2014 nyuaf 000 0beng
010 $a 2013041870
020 $a9781611457841 (hardback)
040 $aDLC$beng$cDLC$erda$dDLC
042 $apcc
050 00 $aPS3515.A4347$bZ59 2014
082 00 $a813/.52$aB$223
084 $aBIO007000$2bisacsh
100 1 $aCline, Sally.
245 10 $aDashiell Hammett :$bMan of Mystery : a biography /$cby Sally Cline.
264 1 $aNew York :$bArcade Publishing,$c[2014]
300 $axxi,$a234 pages, [8] pages of plates :$c22 cm.
336 $atext$2rdacontent
337 $aunmediated$2rdamedia
338 $avolume$2rdacarrier
520 $a"Dashiell Hammett changed the face of crime fiction. In five novels published over five years as well as a string of stories, he transformed the mystery genre into literature and left us with the figure of the hard-boiled detective, from the Continental Op to Sam Spade--immortalized on film by Humphrey Bogart in The Maltese Falcon--and the more glamorous Thin Man, also made iconic with the aid of Hollywood. A brilliant writer, Hammett was a complex and enigmatic man. After 1934 until his death in 1961, he published no more novels and suffered from a writer's block that both shamed and maimed him. He is identified with his tough protagonists, but his tuberculosis compromised his masculine identity and alcoholism may have been his answer. A former Pinkerton detective who valued honesty, he was attracted to women who lied outrageously, most notably Lillian Hellman, with whom he conducted a thirty-year affair. A controversial political activist who stood up for civil liberty, he was also a very private man. In this compact new biography, Sally Cline uses fresh research, including interviews with Hammett's family and Hellman's heir, to reexamine the life and works of the writer whom Raymond Chandler called "the ace performer.""--$cProvided by publisher.
600 10 $aHammett, Dashiell,$d1894-1961.
650 0 $aAuthors, American$y20th century$vBiography.
650 0 $aDetective and mystery stories, American$xHistory and criticism.
650 7 $aBIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Literary.$2bisacsh