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Cover of The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler

The Big Sleep

Raymond Chandler

  • 229 pages · about 4 hours
  • First published 1939
  • 116 editions
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1 About this book

The Big Sleep is a 1939 hardboiled crime novel by American-British writer Raymond Chandler, the first to feature the detective Philip Marlowe. It has been adapted for film twice, in 1946 and again in 1978. The story is set in Los Angeles.

The story is noted for its complexity, with characters double-crossing one another and secrets being exposed throughout the narrative. The title is a euphemism for death; the final pages of the book refer to a rumination about "sleeping the big sleep".

In 1999, the book was voted 96th of Le Monde's "100 Books of the Century". In 2005, it was included in Time magazine's "List of the 100 Best Novels".

Summary adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)

  • Private investigators
  • Mystery
  • Mystery & detective, hard-boiled
  • Women
  • Los angeles
  • California

2 About Raymond Chandler

1888–1959

Raymond Thornton Chandler (July 23, 1888 – March 26, 1959) was an American-British novelist and screenwriter. In 1932, at age 44, Chandler became a detective fiction writer after losing his job as an oil company executive during the Great Depression. His first short story, "Blackmailers Don't Shoot", was published in 1933 in Black Mask, a pulp magazine. His first novel, The Big Sleep, was published in 1939.

Bio adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)

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