Raymond Chandler was an American novelist and screenwriter who is known for his contributions to the hard-boiled fiction genre and classical Hollywood cinema.

Chandler was born July 23rd, 1888 in Chicago, Illinois but was raised in England. After his parent’s divorce, Chandler’s mother moved them to England to be closer to family and to allow Chandler to attend more prestigious schools. Upon returning from his studies abroad, Chandler became a British citizen and worked in civil service before moving to California in 1912. In California, he met the love of his life, Cissy Pascal, a married woman eighteen years his senior. Their romance was interrupted by WWI when Chandler joined the Canadian army and served in the Royal Air Force which was then called the Royal Flying Corps. After the war, Chandler settled back in Los Angeles and took a job at the Dabney Oil Syndicate. Around that time, his old flame Cissy Pascal divorced her husband and the two lovers wed in 1924 and remained married until Cissy’s death in 1954.

Chandler rose to an executive position within the oil syndicate and worked amongst con-men, gamblers, and other seedy characters in the wild cash grab that was California’s oil industry. While an executive at Dabney, he submitted poems, short stories, essays, and sketches to magazines on the side. Once the Great Depression hit, Chandler lost his high paying position and turned to using his writing talents to make a living.

Chandler listed himself as a writer in the L.A. city directory and began writing for “pulp” magazines such as the Black Mask, the magazine that picked up Chandler’s first short story, Blackmailers Don’t Shoot. Chandler often wrote within the “hard-boiled” genre which often featured seedy characters, slang dialogue, graphic violence, sex, and sleazy big-city settings. He knew he could bring something new to the genre given his highly educated background. He often drew inspiration from Ernest Hemmingway and Charles Dickens. He was known for his realistic style that stood out from the other hard-boiled writers who featured impossibly smart protagonists in their puzzle style mysteries.

Chandler’s income was always modest, never really earning him more than a couple thousand dollars as he was a slow writer and the magazines he wrote for did not pay much. His income improved once he began writing novels. His first novel, The Big Sleep, made him $2,000 and featured the first appearance of his signature character, Philp Marlowe, a private detective working in the seedy underbelly of mid-century Los Angeles. His first few novels sold modestly in hardcover but his third novel, The High Window, was picked up by Hollywood and Chandler began working as a screenwriter.

Chandler contributed to the classic films Strangers on a Train, Double Indemnity, and The Blue Dahlia. Chandler’s income as a screenwriter far surpassed his former oil executive income and allowed he and Cissy to live a glamorous lifestyle.

Chandler continued to write novels into the late 1950’s. During this time his health as well as Cissy’s began to decline. Cissy Chandler died in 1954, leaving a void in Chandler’s life that he tried to cure with alcohol, women, and a suicide attempt. Chandler’s last novel, Playback (1958), was a poorly received novel that he completed a year before dying of pneumonia.

The Big Sleep

Detective FictionNovels

Raymond Chandler

Detective Fiction Novels