The Big Sleep - Raymond Chandler

 

I have the ugly 1978 movie tie-in paperback with Mitchum. 50 cents. Never read it. It’s funny. Chandler’s language is a little more colorful than Hammett. Certain things in the plot didn’t make it into the movie version, or were obscured, b/c of the moral code. There is an ether scene for one thing. I did have a tendency to hear the dialogue in Bogart’s voice.

Beauty header cover scan from Flickr.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Big_Sleep

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/nov/24/100-best-novels-the-big-sleep-raymond-chandler

http://killercoversoftheweek.blogspot.com/2014/02/marlowe-makes-entrance.html

More good covers.

First editions on Abe Books highest price page range from $25,000 to $3500. As with Hammett, everything is collectible. There was even an Armed Services paperback edition. Priced at $93. The 1976 edition I have found here for $7.

https://entertainment.time.com/2005/10/16/all-time-100-novels/slide/the-big-sleep-1939-by-raymond-chandler/