Raymond Chandler

Raymond Chandler was one of the most influential crime writers of the twentieth century, an American-British novelist and screenwriter who created the hard-boiled detective Philip Marlowe and elevated the crime novel to a form of literature. Born in Chicago in 1888, he was raised in England from the age of seven, educated at Dulwich College in London, and returned to the United States as a young man. After a career in the oil industry ended during the Depression, Chandler turned to writing in his early forties, publishing his first short story in Black Mask magazine in 1933. His first novel, The Big Sleep, introduced Philip Marlowe in 1939 — a wisecracking, honourable private detective navigating the corrupt underworld of Los Angeles. He followed it with Farewell, My Lovely; The High Window; The Lady in the Lake; The Long Goodbye; and others. He also wrote screenplays, including Double Indemnity with Billy Wilder. Chandler died in 1959 but his influence on crime fiction, film noir, and American literature is immeasurable. His audiobooks and books continue to captivate listeners and readers with their distinctive prose style — lyrical, sardonic, and utterly original — and their portrait of Los Angeles as a city of dreams and corruption.