Woman in the Dark - Hardcover

Hammett, Dashiell

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0747200866 ISBN 13: 9780747200864

Publisher: Headline Book Publishing, 1988

Synopsis

This delightful small reprint is a Headline Book Publishing Plc, 1988, 1st English edition in almost mint condition. It is a hardback with a red cloth cover with gilt lettering and is 5.5" x 8.75" with 81 pages. The book looks unread and the only sign of age is a slight ageing of the paper. The previous owner has neatly written "PB" on the front free end paper. The unclipped dust jacket is well designed by Paul Leith and is in mint condition. The dust jacket has a portrait of Dashiell Hammett on the back. There are illustrations in the text. ISBN 0-7472-0086-6.

About this title

About the Author:

Dashiell Samuel Hammett was born in St. Mary's County. He grew up in Philadelphia and Baltimore. Hammett left school at the age of fourteen and held several kinds of jobs thereafter--messenger boy, newsboy, clerk, operator, and stevedore, finally becoming an operative for Pinkerton's Detective Agency. Sleuthing suited young Hammett, but World War I intervened, interrupting his work and injuring his health. When Sergeant Hammett was discharged from the last of several hospitals, he resumed detective work. He soon turned to writing, and in the late 1920s Hammett became the unquestioned master of detective-story fiction in America. In The Maltese Falcon (1930) he first introduced his famous private eye, Sam Spade. The Thin Man (1932) offered another immortal sleuth, Nick Charles. Red Harvest (1929), The Dain Curse (1929), and The Glass Key (1931) are among his most successful novels. During World War II, Hammett again served as sergeant in the Army, this time for more than two years, most of which he spent in the Aleutians. Hammett's later life was marked in part by ill health, alcoholism, a period of imprisonment related to his alleged membership in the Communist Party, and by his long-time companion, the author Lillian Hellman, with whom he had a very volatile relationship. His attempt at autobiographical fiction survives in the story "Tulip," which is contained in the posthumous collection The Big Knockover (1966, edited by Lillian Hellman). Another volume of his stories, The Continental Op (1974, edited by Stephen Marcus), introduced the final Hammett character: the "Op," a nameless detective (or "operative") who displays little of his personality, making him a classic tough guy in the hard-boiled mold--a bit like Hammett himself.

From the Inside Flap:

A young, frightened, foreign woman appears at the door of an isolated house. The man and woman inside take her in. Other strangers appear in pursuit of the girl. Menace is in the air.
Originally published in 1933, Hammett's Woman in the Dark shows the author at the peak of his narrative powers. With an introduction by Robert B. Parker, the author of the celebrated Spenser novels.

About this edition

• Publisher: Headline Book Publishing
• Publication date: 1988
• ISBN 10: 0747200866
• ISBN 13: 9780747200864
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 96