Nightmare Town
by Dashiell Hammett
- Used
- near fine
- Hardcover
- first
- Condition
- Near Fine/Near Fine
- ISBN 10
- 0375401113
- ISBN 13
- 9780375401114
- Seller
-
Springfield, Missouri, United States
Payment Methods Accepted
About This Item
1st ed. / 1st printing. NF book / NF DJ. Used copy though appears unread, very tight and clean textblock and boards, first edition stated with no additional printings. DJ in mylar protection, has tiny superficial ding to back cover which does not transfer to book, else fine with no tears or chipping and 25.00 price intact. Not remaindered. Nice.
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
- Backwater Books (US)
- Bookseller's Inventory #
- biblio248
- Title
- Nightmare Town
- Author
- Dashiell Hammett
- Format/Binding
- Hardcover
- Book Condition
- Used - Near Fine
- Jacket Condition
- Near Fine
- Quantity Available
- 1
- Edition
- First ed., First printing
- ISBN 10
- 0375401113
- ISBN 13
- 9780375401114
- Publisher
- Alfred A. Knopf
- Place of Publication
- New York
- Date Published
- 1999
- Pages
- 396
- Keywords
- First Edition
Terms of Sale
Backwater Books
30 day return guarantee, with full refund including original shipping costs for up to 30 days after delivery if an item arrives misdescribed or damaged.
About the Seller
Backwater Books
About Backwater Books
Glossary
Some terminology that may be used in this description includes:
- 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...
- First Edition
- In book collecting, the first edition is the earliest published form of a book. A book may have more than one first edition in...
- Tight
- Used to mean that the binding of a book has not been overly loosened by frequent use.