February 2013 Auction Ends Wednesday, February 6th, 5pm Pacific
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 2/6/2013
Scarce first printing, first edition of Raymond Chandler's most famous book, ''The Big Sleep.'' New York: Alfred A. Knopf: 1939. This novel introduced Philip Marlowe, the detective whose famous first lines in the novel illuminated a character that would forever change the canon of noir and establish the primacy of the hard-boiled detective novel as a genre during the 30's and 40's: ''I was neat, clean, shaved and sober, and I didn't care who knew it. I was everything the well-dressed private detective ought to be.'' 277pp. book is in publisher's original orange cloth, with very minor edge and corner wear to the cloth and very slight fading to the spine. Some discoloration along the hinges of the endpapers from binder's glue. Original full-color unclipped $2.00 dustjacket has a few tiny chips and areas of loss to the jacket edges and the spine ends, including one very short closed tear to top edge of jacket. An incredibly scarce copy of Chandler's seminal work, rarely encountered in a well-kept and unrestored dustjacket.
Very Rare First Edition, First Printing of Raymond Chandler's Masterpiece ''The Big Sleep'' -- The Book That Brought His Detective Philip Marlowe to Fame -- With Original Scarce Dustjacket
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