Nineteen Letters Written to Prudence Whitfield While Stationed in Alaska in W.W. II

Dating from July 31, 1944 - July 5, 1945, typed single space (one letter is typed at one and a half spaces) on thin, air mail paper. Three of the letters are two pages, and the rest are one page each. One letter is signed “Dash,” and the rest in pen and in pencil as “SDH.” There are a few small corrections in Hammett’s hand and an occasional note in Mrs. Whitfield’s, who was married to Hammett’s friend and hard-boiled writing colleague, Raoul Whitfield. The letters reflect Hammett’s warm, intimate feelings for the recipient, and are mostly filled with cheery chat and stories of idle, lonely army life. “I’ve been half-seriously monkeying with the notion of doing --or trying --a longish poem that would be called ‘The Aleutians Don’t Give A Damn’...This notion too...will likely as not be put away in the drawer marked Projects thought up in the absence of women, which is already pretty full...Tonight I’m going to treat myself to a tub bath, the first in about fifteen months, and if I can remember how it’s done I expect to have a very luxurious [letter crossed out] time of it. It’s little things like that which make up the lives of those soldiers who are not encouraged to kill anybody...Having gone without glasses for a week or so...I now find I don’t need glasses nearly as much as I used to...Do you suppose I’m growing younger?...It would be nice to start all over and to be able to make all the same mistakes again, though probably in slightly different form...I’m having a lot of fun with the novel-notions...but...not yet ready to start production...Me, I like to mull. When you start to put things down on paper you...start whittling them down and I like the pre-writing period when all is grand and vast and majestic.” Minor marginal tears and chips, creases from folding; excellent condition.