The Maltese Falcon (Author Biography)

Author Biography

Born in 1894 in Saint Mary's County, Maryland, Samuel Dashiell Hammett grew up in Philadelphia and then Baltimore. He attended the Baltimore Polytechnic Institute, dropping out at age fourteen to help his family financially. That led to a series of positions, including store clerk, newsboy, machine operator, and stevedore. Eventually, he became an operative for the Pinkerton Detective Agency, a nationwide franchise.

Hammett served as an ambulance clerk during World War I. During the war, he contracted influenza, which affected his health for the rest of his life. Returning to civilian life, he settled in San Francisco, the city that has become associated with him through his works. Hammett married Josephine Dolan, a nurse he met while recuperating, in 1921. From 1922 to 1926, most of his living was made writing copy for advertisements. He also worked part-time for the Pinkerton agency, when his health allowed.

His first short story was published in 1923. After that, he published detective stories regularly. His first novel, Red Harvest, was published in 1929, followed by The Dain Curse that same year, and The Maltese Falcon the year after. In all, he wrote only a handful of novels, concentrating his efforts on short stories and screenplays. The residual payments from radio and film spin-offs of The Maltese Falcon and his 1934 novel The Thin Man supported him financially.

In the mid-1930s, Hammett began an affair with famed playwright Lillian Hellman, who was to be his true love for the rest of his life. He divorced Josephine in 1937. He became active in the Communist party in the 1930s, when many other writers did. During World War II, Hammett, despite failing health and severe alcoholism, served as a sergeant in the Aleutian Islands, editing an army newspaper.

When he returned home after the war, his health was ruined, his writing was infrequent, and he was subject to persecution by the country's growing anti-Communist sentiment. In 1951, Hammett went to prison for five months when he refused to testify in a trial against four Communists charged with conspiracy. He was blacklisted and unable to sell his works; in addition, the Internal Revenue Service attached his income to collect back taxes owed. After his release, he taught in New York at the Jefferson School of Social Science. Hammett died of lung cancer in 1961.