The Maltese Falcon by Hammett, Dashiell - 1930

viii+349+[3 ad] pages with fold out illustration. Small octavo (7 3/4" x 5 1/2") bound in original publisher's black cloth with blue lettering to spine and cover in original jacket. Signed card laid in. First edition. Wright wrote as a critic and journalist until 1923, when he became ill from what was given out as overwork, but was in reality a secret drug addiction, according to John Loughery's biography. His doctor confined him to bed (supposedly because of a heart ailment, but actually because of a cocaine addiction) for more than two years. In frustration and boredom, he began collecting and studying thousands of volumes of crime and detection. In 1926 this paid off with the publication of his first S. S. Van Dine novel, The Benson Murder Case. Wright took his pseudonym from the abbreviation of "steamship" and from Van Dine, which he claimed was an old family name. Wright wrote a series of short stories for Warner Brothers film studio in the early 1930's. These stories were used as the basis for a… Read More