The Critical Response to Dashiell Hammett

by Christop Metress

Overview

As author of Red Harvest, The Maltese Falcon, The Thin Man, and other works, Dashiell Hammett is one of the most popular American writers of detective fiction. The critical response to his work has been diverse. Edmund Wilson saw little merit in his novels, while Raymond Chandler pointed to Hammett's originality and artistry. While some critics have considered it foolish to search for deeper meanings in his novels, many others have praised his writings as profound social and literary documents.

Spanning more than 60 years of critical response, this collection includes contemporary reviews of Hammett's novels from the 1920s and 1930s as well as more than 20 full-length essays representing diverse critical approaches and assessments. It is the first collection of critical essays devoted to Hammett's work. Included are essays by major novelists such as Raymond Chandler and Ross Macdonald, along with pieces by influential literary critics such as Edmund Wilson and John G. Cawelti. Moreover, two of the essays were written specifically for this volume. An introductory essay traces the development of Hammett's literary reputation, and an extensive bibliography lists sources for further reading.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780313289385
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	12/30/1994
Series:	Critical Responses in Arts and Letters , #15
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 0.69(d)
Lexile:	1350L (what's this?)

About the Author

CHRISTOPHER METRESS is Assistant Professor of English at Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama. His interests include 19th- and 20th-century American literature, detective fiction, and literature of the American South. His many articles have appeared in jourbanals such as Studies in the Novel, Studies in Short Fiction, Essays in Literature, and South Atlantic Quarterly.

Table of Contents

Series Foreword by Cameron Northouse
Introduction
Chronology
Red Harvest
Reviews (1929)
From The Jourbanals of André Gide by André Gide (1941)
From The Pursuit of Crime by Dennis Porter (1981)
From Shadow Man: The Life of Dashiell Hammett by Richard Layman (1981)
From Hammett: A Life at the Edge by William F. Nolan (1983)
From "Radical Anger: Dashiell Hammett's Red Harvest" by Christopher Bentley (1988)
From Adventure, Mystery, and Romance by John G. Cawelti (1976)
Forms of Labor in Dashiell Hammett's Red Harvest by Carl Freedman and Christopher Kendrick (1991)
The Dain Curse
Reviews (1929)
From Dashiell Hammett: A Casebook by William F. Nolan (1969)
From California Writers by Stoddard Martin (1983)
From "The Hardboiled Dicks" by Donald Westlake (1984)
The Dain Curse: The Epistemology of the Detective Story by Sinda Gregory (1985)
"A Long and Laughable Story": Hammett's The Dain Curse and the Postmodern Condition by Bruce Gatenby (1994)
The Maltese Falcon
Reviews (1930)
From the Introduction to The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett (1934)
From "Why Do People Read Detective Stories?" by Edmund Wilson (1944)
From Heroes and Highbrows and the Popular Mind by Leo Gurko (1953)
From "The Maltese Falcon: The Emergency of the Hero" by George J. Thompson (1973)
From Saint With a Gun by William Ruehlman (1974)
From Dashiell Hammett by Julian Symons (1985)
Focus on The Maltese Falcon: The Metaphysical Falcon by Irving Malin (1968)
Jameson, Genre, and Gumshoes: The Maltese Falcon as Inverted Romance by Jasmine Yong Hall (1990)
Dashiell Hammett and the Challenge of New Individualism: Rereading Red Harvest and The Maltese Falcon by Christopher Metress (1990)
The Glass Key
Reviews (1931)
From "Oh, Look—Two Good Books!" by Dorothy Parker (1931)
A Letter to the Editor of Writer's Digest by Joseph T. Shaw (1931)
On The Glass Key by Rex Stout (1970)
From Mortal Consequences by Julian Symons (1973)
On The Glass Key by James M. Cain (1976)
From The New Wild West: The Urban Mysteries of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler by Paul Skenazy (1982)
From "Setting the Record Straight on Dashiell Hammett: A Life by William F. Nolan (1984)
The Riddle of the Key by Will Murray (1989)
Dashiell Hammett's Hardboiled Modernism by Jon Thompson (1993)
The Thin Man
Reviews (1934)
From an advertisement, The New York Times Alfred Knopf (1934)
From Shadow Man: The Life of Dashiell Hammett by Richard Layman (1979)
From Private Investigations: The Novels of Dashiell Hammett by Sinda Gregory (1985)
The Thin Man: The End Game by George J. Thompson (1974)
From Beams Falling: The Art of Dashiell Hammett's Novels by Peter Wolfe (1980)
General Studies
From Murder for Pleasure: The Life and Times of the Detective Story by Howard Haycraft (1941)
From "The Simple Art of Murder" by Raymond Chandler (1944)
Dashiell Hammett's Private Eye: No Loyalty Beyond the Job by David T. Bazelon (1949)
The Thin Man by A. Alvarez (1966)
The Poetics of the Private Eye: The Novels of Dashiell Hammett by Robert I. Edenbaum (1968)
Dashiell Hammett and the Continental Op by Steven Marcus (1974)
Homage to Dashiell Hammett by Ross Macdonald (1981)
Finding out about Gender in Hammett's Detective Fiction: Generic Constraints or Transcendental Norms? by David J. Herman (1991)
Dangerous Romance as Prelude to Love: Hammett's Woman in the Dark by Larry Anderson (1994)
Additional Readings
Index

Editorial Reviews

Contains reviews and criticism of Hammett's detective fiction, spanning some 60 years of critical response. Discusses works such as Red Harvest, The Dain Curse, The Maltese Falcon, and The Glass Key. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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