Nightmare Town
by Hammett, Dashiell; (Queen, Ellery introduction)
- Used
- good
- Paperback
- first
- Condition
- Good
- Seller
-
San Jose, California, United States
Payment Methods Accepted
About This Item
The American Mercury, New York, 1948. First Edition. Softcover. Good. First collected edition of Nightmare Town, The Scorched Face, and Corkscrew. The covers are edge rubbed, have splits on the spine ends, and the spine is mildly toned. The text leaves are moderately toned.
Synopsis
Dashiell Samuel Hammett was born in St. Mary’s County. He grew up in Philadelphia and Baltimore. Hammett left school at the age of fourteen and held several kinds of jobs thereafter—messenger boy, newsboy, clerk, operator, and stevedore, finally becoming an operative for Pinkerton’s Detective Agency. Sleuthing suited young Hammett, but World War I intervened, interrupting his work and injuring his health. When Sergeant Hammett was discharged from the last of several hospitals, he resumed detective work. He soon turned to writing, and in the late 1920s Hammett became the unquestioned master of detective-story fiction in America. In The Maltese Falcon (1930) he first introduced his famous private eye, Sam Spade. The Thin Man (1932) offered another immortal sleuth, Nick Charles. Red Harvest (1929), The Dain Curse (1929), and The Glass Key (1931) are among his most successful novels. During World War II, Hammett again served as sergeant in the Army, this time for more than two years, most of which he spent in the Aleutians. Hammett’s later life was marked in part by ill health, alcoholism, a period of imprisonment related to his alleged membership in the Communist Party, and by his long-time companion, the author Lillian Hellman, with whom he had a very volatile relationship. His attempt at autobiographical fiction survives in the story “Tulip,” which is contained in the posthumous collection The Big Knockover (1966, edited by Lillian Hellman). Another volume of his stories, The Continental Op (1974, edited by Stephen Marcus), introduced the final Hammett character: the “Op,” a nameless detective (or “operative”) who displays little of his personality, making him a classic tough guy in the hard-boiled mold—a bit like Hammett himself.
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Details
- Bookseller
- Trilby & Co. Books
(US)
- Bookseller's Inventory #
- 18092806
- Title
- Nightmare Town
- Author
- Hammett, Dashiell; (Queen, Ellery introduction)
- Format/Binding
- Softcover
- Book Condition
- Used - Good
- Quantity Available
- 1
- Edition
- First Edition
- Binding
- Paperback
- Publisher
- The American Mercury, New York
- Date Published
- 1948
- Keywords
- first edition
Terms of Sale
Trilby & Co. Books
30 day return guarantee, with full refund including original shipping costs for up to 30 days after delivery if an item arrives misdescribed or damaged.
About the Seller
Trilby & Co. Books
Biblio member since 2011
San Jose, California
About Trilby & Co. Books
Trilby & Co. Books is located in Northern California. The company was founded years ago by a Shetland Sheepdog named Trilby. Trilby's message to her family was brief and direct - the sale of books would increase disposable income and improve the quality of provisions in her food dish. My name is McTavish (picture above). I am the current CEO of this company, and I approve of her message. Oh, by the way, my speciality is literature, with an emphasis on first editions and signed books.
Glossary
Some terminology that may be used in this description includes:
- First Edition
- In book collecting, the first edition is the earliest published form of a book. A book may have more than one first edition in...
- Spine
- The outer portion of a book which covers the actual binding. The spine usually faces outward when a book is placed on a shelf....
- New
- A new book is a book previously not circulated to a buyer. Although a new book is typically free of any faults or defects, "new"...
- Leaves
- Very generally, "leaves" refers to the pages of a book, as in the common phrase, "loose-leaf pages." A leaf is a single sheet...
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