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Written by RickyMarch 4, 2022

Ep 3 – Raymond Chandler and The Big Sleep

Episode 3 of the Paperback Show features a discussion of the novels of Raymond Chandler with bookseller and audio-book producer, Richard Brewer. We focus, in particular, on Chandler’s classic – The Big Sleep. It was a lengthy conversation so we released a condensed version of the show for our regular podcast. We are making the uncut version available here as part of our Show Notes (see below). There’s also a cover gallery which you can access in a separate post.

Ep 3 Show Notes

BBC interview with Raymond Chandler. You can download a written version of the interview (Ian Fleming is the interviewer) right here. ( see page 30)

Tom Adams is our favorite cover artist for the Ballantine edition of Raymond Chandler. There is an excellent book out on Adams, who also illustrated the British paperback editions of Agatha Christie. The book is titled: Tom Adams Uncovered.

Ballantine Raymond Chandler paperbacks (covers by Tom Adams)
The Big Sleep (novel) by Raymond Chandler

His first novel, The Big Sleep, was published in 1939, featuring the detective Philip Marlowe, speaking in the first person. In 1950, Chandler described in a letter to his English publisher, Hamish Hamilton, why he began reading pulp magazines and later wrote for them: Wandering up and down the Pacific Coast in an automobile, I began to read pulp magazines, because they were cheap enough to throw away and because I never had at any time any taste for the kind of thing which is known as women’s magazines. This was in the great days of the Black Mask (if I may call them great days) and it struck me that some of the writing was pretty forceful and honest, even though it had its crude aspect. I decided that this might be a good way to try to learn to write fiction and get paid a small amount of money at the same time. I spent five months over an 18,000-word novelette and sold it for $180. After that, I never looked back, although I had a good many uneasy periods looking forward.