Raymond Chandler

July 23, 1888. The American master of postwar hard-boiled crime fiction didn’t begin writing until he lost his management job at an oil company in 1933. After publishing short stories in Black Mask and other crime magazines, Chandler published his first novel, The Big Sleep, in 1939 to popular and critical acclaim. This and subsequent novels featured Philip Marlowe, a Los Angeles private eye who liked “liquor and women and chess and a few other things.” Chandler was known for spare prose that featured gripping similes: “The wet air was as cold as the ashes of love” or “She had eyes like strange sins.” Chandler also authored or coauthored three Hollywood screenplays, including the searing Double Indemnity. Born at Chicago, IL, Chandler died at La Jolla, CA, on Mar 26, 1959.

See more events for Jul 23, 2011.