The Glass Key
by Dashiell Hammett
- Used
- near fine
- Hardcover
- Condition
- Near Fine/Good
- Seller
-
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Payment Methods Accepted
About This Item
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
- Sellers & Newel Second-Hand Books (CA)
- Bookseller's Inventory #
- 10936
- Title
- The Glass Key
- Author
- Dashiell Hammett
- Format/Binding
- Hardcover
- Book Condition
- Used - Near Fine
- Jacket Condition
- Good
- Quantity Available
- 1
- Edition
- Photoplay Edition
- Publisher
- Grosset & Dunlap
- Place of Publication
- New York
- Date Published
- 1942
- Pages
- 282
- Keywords
- mystery, murder, corruption, politics, Photoplay, movie tie-in
- Size
- 8vo - over 7¾ - 9¾" tall
Terms of Sale
Sellers & Newel Second-Hand Books
30 day return guarantee, with full refund including shipping costs for up to 30 days after delivery if an item arrives misdescribed or damaged.
About the Seller
Sellers & Newel Second-Hand Books
About Sellers & Newel Second-Hand Books
Glossary
Some terminology that may be used in this description includes:
- 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....
- Chipping
- A defect in which small pieces are missing from the edges; fraying or small pieces of paper missing the edge of a paperback, or...
- Jacket
- Sometimes used as another term for dust jacket, a protective and often decorative wrapper, usually made of paper which wraps...
- Fine
- A book in fine condition exhibits no flaws. A fine condition book closely approaches As New condition, but may lack the...
- Edges
- The collective of the top, fore and bottom edges of the text block of the book, being that part of the edges of the pages of a...
- Tight
- Used to mean that the binding of a book has not been overly loosened by frequent use.