Dashiell Hammett
Dashiell Hammett
Born	Samuel Dashiell Hammett (1894-05-27)May 27, 1894 Saint Mary's County, Maryland, United States
Died	January 10, 1961(1961-01-10) (aged 66) New York City, United States
Occupation	Novelist
Nationality	American
Period	1929–1951
Genres	Hardboiled crime fiction, detective fiction
Influenced Raymond Chandler, Paul Auster

Samuel Dashiell Hammett ( /dəˈʃiːl/; May 27, 1894 – January 10, 1961) was an American author of hard-boiled detective novels and short stories, screenplay writer, and political activist. Among the enduring characters he created are Sam Spade (The Maltese Falcon), Nick and Nora Charles (The Thin Man), and the Continental Op (Red Harvest and The Dain Curse).

In addition to the significant influence his novels and stories had on film, Hammett "is now widely regarded as one of the finest mystery writers of all time"^[1] and was called, in his obituary in The New York Times, "the dean of the... 'hard-boiled' school of detective fiction".^[2] Time magazine included Hammett's 1929 novel Red Harvest on a list of the 100 best English-language novels published between 1923 and 2005.^[3]

Contents 1 Early life 2 Marriage and family 3 Career 4 Later years 4.1 Service in World War II 4.2 Post-war political activity 4.2.1 Imprisonment and the blacklist 5 Death 6 Works 6.1 Novels 6.2 Short fiction 6.3 Collected short fiction 6.4 Uncollected stories 6.5 Other publications 6.6 Unpublished stories 7 Published as 8 References 9 Bibliography 10 Biography/criticism/reference 11 External links

  Early life

Hammett was born on a farm called Hopewell and Aim in St. Mary's County, in southern Maryland.^[4] His parents were Richard Thomas Hammett and Anne Bond Dashiell. His mother belonged to an old Maryland family whose name was Anglicized from the French De Chiel. Hammett was baptized a Catholic^[5] and grew up in Philadelphia and Baltimore. "Sam," as he was known before he began writing, left school when he was 13 years old and held several jobs before working for the Pinkerton National Detective Agency. He served as an operative for the Pinkertons from 1915 to February 1922, with time off to serve in World War I. However, the agency's role in union strike-breaking eventually disillusioned him.^[6]

Hammett enlisted in the United States Army in 1918 and served in the Motor Ambulance Corps. However, he became ill with the Spanish flu and later contracted tuberculosis. He spent most of his time in the Army as a patient in Cushman Hospital, Tacoma, Washington. While there he met a nurse, Josephine Dolan, whom he later married.

  Marriage and family

Hammett and Dolan were married, and they had two daughters, Mary Jane (born 15 October 1921) and Josephine (born in 1926).^[7] Shortly after the birth of their second child, Health Services nurses informed Josephine that due to Hammett's TB, she and the children should not live with him full time. Josephine rented a home in San Francisco, where Hammett would visit on weekends. The marriage soon fell apart, but he continued to financially support his wife and daughters with the income he made from his writing.^[8]

  Career

Known for his authenticity and realism, Hammett drew on his experiences as a Pinkerton operative. As Hammett said: "All my characters were based on people I've known personally, or known about."^[9]

Hammett turned to alcohol before working in advertising and, eventually, writing. His work at the detective agency provided him the inspiration for his writings.^[10] Hammett wrote most of his detective fiction during the period that he was living in San Francisco (the 1920's), and specific streets and locations in San Francisco are frequently mentioned in his stories.

Raymond Chandler, the writer often considered Hammett's successor, summarized his accomplishments:

"Hammett was the ace performer... He is said to have lacked heart; yet the story he himself thought the most of [The Glass Key] is the record of a man's devotion to a friend. He was spare, frugal, hard-boiled, but he did over and over again what only the best writers can ever do at all. He wrote scenes that seemed never to have been written before."

- Chandler, The Simple Art of Murder

  Later years

From 1929 to 1930 Dashiell was romantically involved with Nell Martin, an author of short stories and several novels. He dedicated The Glass Key to her, and in turn, she dedicated her novel Lovers Should Marry to Hammett.

In 1931, Hammett embarked on a 30-year affair with playwright Lillian Hellman. This relationship was portrayed in the film Julia, in which Hammett was portrayed by Jason Robards and Hellman by Jane Fonda, in Oscar-winning and -nominated performances respectively.

He wrote his final novel in 1934, and devoted much of the rest of his life to left-wing activism. He was a strong anti-fascist throughout the 1930s and in 1937 he joined the American Communist Party.^[11] As a member (and in 1941 president) of the League of American Writers, he served on its Keep America Out of War Committee in January 1940 during the period of the Hitler-Stalin pact.^[12] The League again abruptly shifted its political position, ending its anti-war stance, with the German invasion of the USSR in the summer of 1941.

  Service in World War II

In early 1942, following the attack on Pearl Harbor, Hammett again enlisted in the United States Army. He was a disabled veteran of World War I, and a victim of tuberculosis, but he pulled strings in order to be admitted. He served as a sergeant in the Aleutian Islands, where he edited an Army newspaper. He also fell victim to emphysema. As a corporal in 1943, he had co-authored The Battle of the Aleutians with Cpl. Robert Colodny, under the direction of an Infantry intelligence officer, Major Henry W. Hall.

  Post-war political activity

After the war, Hammett returned to political activism, "but he played that role with less fervor than before."^[13] He was elected President of the Civil Rights Congress (CRC) on June 5, 1946 at a meeting held at the Hotel Diplomat in New York City, and "devoted the largest portion of his working time to CRC activities."^[13] In 1946, a bail fund was created by the CRC "to be used at the discretion of three trustees to gain the release of defendants arrested for political reasons."^[14] Those three trustees were Hammett, who was chairman, Robert W. Dunn, and Frederick Vanderbilt Field, "millionaire Communist supporter."^[14] On April 3, 1947, the CRC was designated a Communist front group on the Attorney General's List of Subversive Organizations, as directed by U.S. President Harry S. Truman’s Executive Order 9835.^[15]

  Imprisonment and the blacklist

The CRC's bail fund gained national attention on November 4, 1949, when bail in the amount of "$260,000 in negotiable government bonds" was posted "to free eleven men appealing their convictions under the Smith Act for criminal conspiracy to teach and advocate the overthrow of the United States government by force and violence."^[14] On July 2, 1951, their appeals exhausted, four of the convicted men fled rather than surrender themselves to Federal agents and begin serving their sentences. The United States District Court for the Southern District of New York issued subpoenas to the trustees of the CRC bail fund in an attempt to learn the whereabouts of the fugitives.^[14] Hammett testified on July 9, 1951 in front of United States District Court Judge Sylvester Ryan, facing questioning by Irving Saypol, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, described by Time as "the nation's number one legal hunter of top Communists".^[14] During the hearing Hammett refused to provide the information the government wanted, specifically, the list of contributors to the bail fund, "people who might be sympathetic enough to harbor the fugitives."^[14] Instead, on every question regarding the CRC or the bail fund, Hammett took the Fifth Amendment, refusing to even identify his signature or initials on CRC documents the government had subpoenaed. As soon as his testimony concluded, Hammett was found guilty of contempt of court.^{[14][16][17][18]} Hammett served time in a West Virginia federal penitentiary where, according to Lillian Hellman,^[19] he was assigned to cleaning toilets.^[20]

During the 1950s he was investigated by Congress as part of Senator Joseph McCarthy's attempt to identify Communist influence on American society and politics. He testified on March 26, 1953 before the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations about his own activities, but refused to cooperate with the committee and was blacklisted.

  Death

A lifetime's heavy consumption of alcohol and cigarettes worsened Hammett's tuberculosis contracted in World War I, and then according to Hellman "jail had made a thin man thinner, a sick man sicker . . . I knew he would now always be sick."^[21] He may have meant to start a new literary life with the novel Tulip, but left it unfinished perhaps because he was "just too ill to care, too worn out to listen to plans or read contracts. The fact of breathing, just breathing, took up all the days and nights."^[22]

As the years of the 1950s wore on, Hellman says Hammett became "a hermit," his decline evident in the clutter of his rented "ugly little country cottage" where "[t]he signs of sickness were all around: now the phonograph was unplayed, the typewriter untouched, the beloved foolish gadgets unopened in their packages."^[23] Hammett no longer could live alone and they both knew it, so the last four years of his life he spent with Hellman. "Not all of that time was easy, and some of it very bad, " she says but, "guessing death was not too far away, I would try for something to have afterwards." ^[24] January 10, 1961, Hammett died in New York City's Lenox Hill Hospital, of lung cancer, diagnosed just two months before. As a veteran of two World Wars, he was buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

  Works

  Novels

All the novels except The Thin Man were originally serialized in three, four, or five parts in various magazines.^[25]

• Red Harvest (published on February 1, 1929)
• The Dain Curse (July 19, 1929)
• The Maltese Falcon (February 14, 1930)
• The Glass Key (April 24, 1931)
• The Thin Man (January 8, 1934)

  Short fiction

• "The Gatewood Caper", 1923
• "Nightmare Town", 1924
• "The Tenth Clew", 1924
• "The House in Turk Street", 1924
• "The Girl with the Silver Eyes", 1924
• "Dead Yellow Women," 1925
• "The Gutting of Couffignal", 1925
• "The Scorched Face", 1925
• "Corkscrew", 1925
• "The Whosis Kid", 1925
• "The Main Death," 1927
• "The Big Knockover", 1927
• "$106,000 Blood Money", 1927
• "This King Business", 1928
• "Fly Paper", 1929
• "The Farewell Murder", 1930
• "A Man Called Spade", 1932
• "Too Many Have Lived", 1932
• "They Can Only Hang You Once", 1932

  Collected short fiction

This unreferenced section requires citations to ensure verifiability.

• $106,000 Blood Money (Bestseller Mystery, 1943) A paperback digest that collects two connected Op stories, The Big Knockover and $106,000 Blood Money.
• Blood Money (Tower, 1943) The hardcover edition of the Bestseller Mystery title.
• The Adventures of Sam Spade (Bestseller Mystery, 1944). Paperback digest that collects the three Spade stories and four others. This and the following eight digest collections were compiled and edited by Fred Dannay (one-half of Ellery Queen) with Hammett's permission. All of these were reprinted as dell map-back paperbacks.
• The Continental Op (Bestseller Mystery, 1945) Paperback digest that collects four Op stories.
• The Adventures of Sam Spade (Tower, 1945). The hardcover edition of the digest of the same title—this was the last time the digests were reprinted in hardcover.
• The Return of the Continental Op (The Jonathan Press, 1945). Paperback digest that collects five further Op stories).
• Hammett Homicides (Bestseller Mysteries, 1946). Paperback digest that collects six stories, including four that feature the Op.
• Dead Yellow Women (The Jonathan Press, 1947). Paperback digest that collects six stories, including four that feature the Op.
• Nightmare Town (American Mercury, 1948). Paperback digest that collects four stories, two of which feature the Op.
• The Creeping Siamese (American Mercury, 1950). Paperback digest that collects six stories, three of which feature the Op.
• Woman in the Dark (The Jonathan Press, 1951). Paperback digest that collects six stories, including three that feature the Op, and the three-part novelette Woman in the Dark.
• A Man Named Thin (Mercury Mystery, 1962). The last paperback digest, collects eight stories, including one Op story.
• The Big Knockover (Random House, 1966; an important collection, edited by Lillian Hellman, that helped revive Hammett's literary reputation; includes the unfinished novel Tulip).
• The Continental Op (Random House, 1974; edited by Steven Marcus).
• Woman in the Dark (Knopf, 1988; hardcover edition that collects the three parts of the title novelette; introduction by Robert B. Parker).
• Nightmare Town (Knopf, 1999; hardcover collection, contents different from the digest title of the same name).
• Lost Stories (Vince Emery Productions, 2005; collects 21 stories that have not been collected previously in hardcover or, in several cases, ever. Emery provides several long commentaries on Hammett's career that provide context for the stories; introduction by Joe Gores).

  Uncollected stories

This unreferenced section requires citations to ensure verifiability.

• The Diamond Wager (Detective Fiction Weekly, October 19, 1929).
• On the Way (Harper's Bazaar, March 1932).

  Other publications

This unreferenced section requires citations to ensure verifiability.

• Creeps by Night; Chills and Thrills (John Day, 1931; Anthology edited by Hammett)^[26]
• Secret Agent X-9 Book 1 (David McKay, 1934; collection of the comic strip written by Hammett and illustrated by Alex Raymond)
• Secret Agent X-9 Book 2 (David McKay, 1934; a second collection of the comic strip).
• The Battle of the Aleutians (Field Force Headquarters, Adak, Alaska, 1944; text written by Hammett, with illustrations by Robert Colodny).
• Watch on the Rhine (screenplay of Hellman's play, in Best Film Plays 1943-44, Crown, 1945; also includes the screenplay for Casablanca).

  Unpublished stories

In 2011, magazine editor Andrew Gulli found fifteen previously unknown short stories by Dashiell Hammett in the archives of the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas in Austin.^[27]

  Published as

• Complete Novels (Steven Marcus, ed.) (Library of America, 1999) ISBN 978-1-883011-67-3.
• Crime Stories and Other Writings (Steven Marcus, ed.) (Library of America, 2001) ISBN 978-1-931082-00-6.

  References

  Bibliography

• Mundell, E.H. A List of the Original Appearances of Dashiell Hammett's Magazine Work, 1968, The Kent State University, Ohio.
• Layman, Richard. Dashiell Hammett: A Descriptive Bibliography, 1979, Pittsburgh Series in Bibliography, University of Pittsburgh Press.
• Lovisi, Gary. Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler: A Checklist and Bibliography of Their Paperback Appearances, 1994, Gryphon Books.

  Biography/criticism/reference

• Nolan, William F. Dashiell Hammett: A Casebook, 1969, McNally & Lofin, Santa Barbara.
• Fechheimer, David, editor. City of San Francisco: Dashiell Hammett Issue, 4 November 1975, City Publishing, San Francisco.
• Braun, Martin. Prototypen der amerikanischen Kriminalzahlung: Die Romane und Kurzgeschichten Carroll John Daly und Dashiell Hammett, 1977, Lang, Frankfurt.
• Layman, Richard. Shadow Man: The Life of Dashiell Hammett, 1981, Harcourt, Brace & Jovanovich, New York
• Nolan, William F. Hammett: A Life at the Edge, 1983, Congdon & Weed, New York.
• Johnson, Diane. Dashiell Hammett: A Life, 1983, Random House, New York.
• Marling, William. Dashiell Hammett, 1983, Twayne, New York.
• Symons, Julian. Dashiell Hammett, 1985, Harcourt, Brace & Javonovich, New York.
• Gregory, Sinda. Private Investigations: The Novels of Dashiell Hammett, 1985, Southern Illinois University Press.
• Christopher Metress, ed. The Critical Response to Dashiell Hammett, 1994, Greenwood Press, Westport, Connecticut.
• Maurin, Maria Jose Alvarez. Claves Para un Enigma: La Poetica del Misterio en la Narrativa de Dashiell Hammett, 1994, Universidad de Leon.
• Mellon, Joan. Hellman and Hammett, 1996, Harper Collins, New York.
• Beunat, Natalie. Dashiell Hammett: Parcours d'une oeuvre, 1997, Encrage Edition, Amiens.
• Gale, Robert L. A Dashiell Hammett Companion, 2000, Greenwood Press, Westport, Connecticut.
• Layman, Richard. Literary Masters, Volume 3: Dashiell Hammett, 2000, Gale Group, Detroit.
• Hammett, Jo. Dashiell Hammett: A Daughter Remembers, 2001, Carroll and Graf Publishers.
• Panek, Leroy Lad. Reading Early Hammett: A Critical Study of the Fiction Prior to The Maltese Falcon, 2004, McFarland, Jefferson, North Carolina.
• Lopez, Jesus Angel Gonzalez. La Narrativa Popular de Dashiell Hammett: Pulps, Cine, Y Comics, 2004, Biblioteca Javier Coy d'Estudis Nord-Americans, Universitat de Valencia.
• Layman, Richard, guest editor. Clues: A Journal of Detection; Theme Issue: Dashiell Hammett, Winter 2005, Heldref Publications, Washington DC.
• Thompson, George J. "Rhino". Hammett's Moral Vision, 2007, Vince Emery Productions, San Francisco.
• Herron, Don. The Dashiell Hammett Tour: Thirtieth Anniversary Guidebook, 2009, Vince Emery Productions, San Francisco.
• Lillian Hellman's three volumes of memoir, An Unfinished Woman, Pentimento, and Scoundrel Time contain much Hammett-related material.

  External links

• The Apartment of Dashiell Hammett and Sam Spade
• Library of Congress lecture by Hammett estate trustee and biographer Richard Layman on the 75th anniversary of The Maltese Falcon
• Checklist of where every Hammett story appeared
• The Lazy Gink's Guide to a Complete Hammett Collection
• PBS American Masters portrait of Hammett
• Dashiell Hammett Collection at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin
• The Case of Dashiell Hammett at the Internet Movie Database (KQED-TV, San Francisco, 1982). Written and produced by Stephen Talbot. Winner of Peabody Award and a special Edgar Allan Poe Award from the Mystery Writers of America.

The Thin Man series Novel  · Radio series  · Television series  · Musical Films The Thin Man (1934)  · After the Thin Man (1936)  · Another Thin Man (1939)  · Shadow of the Thin Man (1941)  · The Thin Man Goes Home (1944)  · Song of the Thin Man (1947) See also Dashiell Hammett  · William Powell  · Myrna Loy  · Asta

Persondata
Name	Hammett, Dashiell
Alternative names	Hammett, Samuel Dashiell
Short description	American Novelist
Date of birth	May 27, 1894
Place of birth	Saint Mary's County, Maryland
Date of death	January 10, 1961
Place of death	New York City, New York