The life of Raymond Chandler has long been obscured by secrets and half-truths as deceptive as anything in his novel The Long Goodbye. Now, drawing on new interviews, previously unpublished letters, and archives on both sides of the Atlantic, Tom Williams casts a new light on this most mysterious of writers. The Raymond Chandler revealed is a man troubled by loneliness and desertion from an early age. Born in Chicago in 1888, his childhood was overshadowed by the collapse of his parents' marriage, his father's alcohol-fuelled violence eventually forcing the boy and his doting mother to leave for Ireland and later London. But class-bound England proved stifling, and Chandler, in his twenties and eager to forge a new life, returned to the United States where—in corruption-ridden Los Angeles—he met his one great love, Cissy Pascal, a married woman eighteen years his senior. It was only during middle age, after his alcoholism wrecked a lucrative career as an oilman, that Chandler seriously turned to crime fiction. And his legacy—the lonely, ambiguous world of Philip Marlowe—endures, compelling generations of crime writers to follow him. In this long-awaited new biography, Tom Williams shadows one of the true literary giants of the twentieth century and considers how crime writing was raised to the level of art.

The World of Raymond Chandler shows how Chandler precariously balanced the values of a classical English education against those of a fast-evolving America during the years before the Great War; how he adopted Los Angeles as his home after WWI, with Hollywood in turn adopting him (and adapting his works); how his detective hero and alter ego Philip Marlowe evolved over the years; and, above all, what it is to be a writer, and in particular one writing in the “other language” of hardboiled fiction. Acclaimed biographer and historian Barry Day deftly interweaves images and text, using quotations from Chandler’s novels, short stories, letters, and interviews, to craft a unique portrait of the mystery writer’s life and times.

Selected letters and nonfiction of one of America’s most beloved writers “reveals the occasionally softer side of the man behind the hard-boiled mysteries” (Library Journal). The Raymond Chandler Papers brings together the correspondence and other previously uncollected writing of America’s undisputed master of crime fiction and creator of the iconic private eye Philip Marlowe, revealing all aspects of the great artist’s powerful personality and broad intellectual curiosity. Featuring a selection of Chandler’s previously unpublished early writings—including a gripping piece about his combat experiences in World War I—and an abandoned profile of the infamous mobster “Lucky” Luciano, The Raymond Chandler Papers is a must-have for all true fans and an important contribution toward understanding the life and work of the enigmatic man Evelyn Waugh called “the greatest living American novelist.” “Since this is Chandler’s writing, quotable, funny, even hilarious comments appear on every page.” —Publishers Weekly

Bobby and his family are visiting Civil War battlefields on the eve of the war's centenary, while inside their car, quiet battles rage. When an accident cuts their trip short, they return home on a bus and witness an incident that threatens to deny a black family seats. What they don't know is the reason for the family's desperation to be on that bus: a few towns away, their child is missing. Lunch-Box Dream presents Jim Crow, racism, and segregation from multiple perspectives. In this story of witnessing without understanding, a naïvely prejudiced boy, in brief flashes of insight, starts to identify and question his assumptions about race.