RAYMOND CHANDLER: A Biography.** [ Author SIGNED copy.]

UK,8vo HB+dw/dj,author SIGNED,1st edn.FINE/VG+.No owner inscrptn,but author's neat,handwritten blue ink inscrptn with date, dedication and signature thus: ' 30th July 1997 (underlined) To Madge and Tom Lots of best wishes 'Thomas' to title page,and no price-clip to dw/dj. Bright,crisp,clean,glossy subject's portrait photographic illustrated front+spine of dw/dj (subject holding a cat) with white+yellow lettering to front,repeated to spine but with slight sunning/fading to yellow letters, rear panel with mauve background and whiye-lettered prose extract from 'Mandarin's Jade (Raymond Chandler; with negligible shelf-wear,bumping.creasing to edges and corners - majority of creasing to top edges of dw/dj - no nicks,tears or splits present.Top+fore-edges bright and clean without foxing/spotting or other blemish; contents bright,tight and clean - no dog-ear reading corners to any page - appears unread, other than my own collation.Publisher's bright, crisp,clean,sharp-cornered original plain navy blue cloth boards with bright,crisp,blocked gilt letters to spine/ backstrip and immaculate sets of plain dark blue endpapers. UK,8vo HB+dw/dj,1st edn,vii-xpp+1-310pp [paginated] includes preface,acknowledgements,9 chapters and an Epilogue,8pp subject's b/w contemporary biographical photographs in 1 block,between pp150/51, chapters' notes and an index; plus [unpaginated] half-title, author SIGNED title page,and separate contents +illustrations lists/tables. Visually the exterior appearance is acceptable,and even internally,the book is in an exceptional condition/state of preservation and presentation.It is only the exterior creasing fault described that prevent a slightly higher grading for the dw/dj.
Born in Nebraska of Irish parents,brought up in Chicago, educated at Dulwich College,and self-taught on those 'mean streets' of Los Angeles about which he wrote, Raymond Chandler - writer,accountant,civil servant,oil executive,poet,recluse,charmer,gentleman,drunk - was full of contradictions as his origins. This is the first authorised biography in over twenty years of the cult novelist who was described by Evelyn Waugh in 1949 as 'the best writer in America' and who inspired 'film noir' and crime writing over the next half century.
He did not write his first book till he was fifty,and his life is as unusual and engrossing as one of his stories.At twenty-five,he emigrated back to America; he fought in World War I with the Canadian forces,married a divorced ex-model,and became a wealthy oil executive in the boom-time Twenties,before re-inventing himself as a writer and legendary Hollywood screenwriter.Even his last years were eventful - after his wife's death,he embarked on a manic globe-trotting spree, a series of reckless plane rides,chance encounters,crashed cars and proposals of marriage.
With access to hundreds of unseen personal documents, photographs and previously unrecorded accounts by those who knew Chandler,Tom Hiney has unearthed revealing new material about the man and the writer.He vividly evokes those strange early years,brings alive the dangerous glamour of the Hollywood era,and puts Chandler's writing in the context of the organised crime and corruption in LA during Prohibition.He gives illuminating details of friendships with Alfred Hitchcock, Ian Fleming,Somerset Maugham,'Lucky' Luciano,Stephen and Natasha Spender.Fully recorded for the first time is Chandler's most intimate friendship - with Cissy,the wife who was twenty years his senior - as well as his paradoxical relations with other women,his alcoholism,his wit,his loneliness,his suicide attempts,his extravagant generosity.
In the light of new discoveries a much rawer,more complex,sympathetic and brilliant Chandler emerges - a man quite as extraordinary as the fiction he wrote. Please contact seller,for correct shipping/P+p quotes - particularly ALL overseas customers - BEFORE ordering through the order page! N.B. ALL buyers please note,stocks' actual shipping/P+p costs are adjusted and any difference is refunded,after order's receipt and before the order's despatch,especially if the item(s) are offered either P+p included/FREE. ** N.B. US/canada customers please be aware: Standard AIRMAIL postage from UK to these destinations can now cost more than the price of the book! If speed is not of the essence,then Economy rate is recommended - at approx. anything from a 1/3rd to 1/2 of the standard US AIR quote/rate - sometimes arriving sooner than the 42 days - but not always. **