period:
p18: The realist in murder writes of a world in which gangsters can rule nations and almost rule cities, in which hotels and apartment houses and celebrated restaurants are owned by men who made their money out of brothels, in which a screen star can be the finger man for a mob. and the nice man down the hall is a boss of the numbers racket; a world where a judge with a cellar full of bootleg liquor can send a man to jail for having a pint in his pocket, where the mayor of your town may have condoned murder as an instrument of money-making, where no man can walk down a dark street in safety because law and order are things we talk about but refrain from practicing; a world where you may witness a holdup in broad daylight and see who did it, but you will fade quickly back into the crowd rather than tell anyone, because the holdup men may have friends with long guns, or the police may not like your testimony, and in any case the shyster for the defense will be allowed to abuse and vilify you in open court, before a jury of selected morons, without any but the most perfunctory interference from a political judge.

p156: "Open one up. will you?"

p157: Then, far away, he seemed to hear a girl. scream thinly.

spelling:
p21: His laughter bellowed and roared around the little turretlike room where the two men sat, overflowed into an enormous living room beyond, echoed back and forth through a maze of heavy dark furnure, enough standing lamps to light a boulevard, a double row of oil paintings in massive gold frames.

p109: "Well, the pearls--imitations, I mean--cost two hundred dollars and were specially made in Bohemia and it took several months and the way things are oven there now she might never be able to get another set of really good initations...."

p116: On the table near by there stood an almost full bottle of Pantation rye whiskey, the full quart size, and on the floor lay an entirely empty bottle of the same excellent brand.

p163: The dance band beyond the distant curtains was wailing a Duke Ellington lament, a forlom monotone of stifled brasses, bitter violins, softly clicking gourds.

p204: The1 boy's eyes bulged.

p220: Carmady said: "I get a little wlld when it rains...."

p223: "...Who sicked you on to me?"

p266: It was twelve minutes past one by the stamping clock on the end of the desk in the lobby of the Case dc Oro.

cement:
p150: Shoes dropped on cement and a smaller spot stabbed at him sideways from the end of the billboards.

p189: He beat his hands up and down on the cement and a hoarse, anguished sound came from deep inside him.

p191: He got out and walked back, turned up a cement path to the bungalow.

p194: Something heavy clattered on the cement and a man swayed forward into the light, swayed back again.

p220: Carmady went up three cement steps and tried the door.

p233: At the top, in a cement parking circle ringed with cypresses, they all got out.

p240: George Dial made a careless swing at it, whanged the end of his racket against the cement back wall.

space:
p248: There was some loose money, currency and silver in his pockets, cigarettes, a folder of matches from the Club Egypt, no wallet, a couple of extra clips of cartridges, De Ruse's . 38.

Liked the Pearls Are a Nuisance best.

Was Mr Chandler prejudiced against Asians--Chinese and Filipinos specifically?

The sterling title essay is followed by a string of fun but fairly disposable pulp detective stories, full of characters cracking wise and jamming pistols into each other's sternums and whatnot. Best of the bunch is "Pearls are a Nuisance," whose hero is an exceedingly well-spoken alcoholic. His crime-solving adventure proves to be more tongue-in-cheek than hard-boiled.

A good collection of true vintage murder and bad guy stories.

The essay that starts this collection of short stories is interesting. I loved it. The stories are easy to read and easy to forget but fun. The scenes are fun to read and characters quite cookie-cutter but most murder mystery characters are. The essay is really what is worth reading but the short stories are fun to read.

The title essay has some interesting things to say about mystery stories, but says it in the most pretentious, off-putting way possible.
So, I was a little grumpy when I started the stories.

They are all really solid, featuring a variety of PIs, cops and gamblers.
Or as I like to call them 'Not Phillip Marlowes'.
most of them are interesting characters, that I could see becoming reoccurring characters, if Marlowe hadn't become Chandler's big money maker.
Be fun to see other writers take them and write sequels.

Because they were for the pulps, the resolution of the mystery tends to end every time with a gunfight, which handily, thins out the cast. It got little annoying after awhile.
and in a couple stories, the world weary hero even gets the girl.

Worth picking up for the essay of the same name; rest is mostly middling Chandler that made me realize how strong a character Philip Marlowe is, as his presence is sorely missed throughout.

From Library Journal

Chandler is not only the best writer of hardboiled PI stories, he's one of the 20th century's top scribes, period. His full canon of novels and short stories is reprinted in trade paper featuring uniform covers in Black Lizard's signature style. A handsome set for a reasonable price.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"Raymond Chandler is a master." --_The New York Times_
_
?[Chandler] wrote as if pain hurt and life mattered.? --The New Yorker

?Chandler seems to have created the culminating American hero: wised up, hopeful, thoughtful, adventurous, sentimental, cynical and rebellious.? --Robert B. Parker, The New York Times Book Review

?Philip Marlowe remains the quintessential urban private eye.? --Los Angeles Times
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?Nobody can write like Chandler on his home turf, not even Faulkner. . . . An original. . . . A great artist.? ?_The Boston Book Review
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?Raymond Chandler was one of the finest prose writers of the twentieth century. . . . Age does not wither Chandler?s prose. . . . He wrote like an angel.? --_Literary Review
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?[T]he prose rises to heights of unselfconscious eloquence, and we realize with a jolt of excitement that we are in the presence of not a mere action tale teller, but a stylist, a writer with a vision.? --Joyce Carol Oates, _The New York Review of Books

_?Chandler wrote like a slumming angel and invested the sun-blinded streets of Los Angeles with a romantic presence.? ?Ross Macdonald
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_?Raymond Chandler is a star of the first magnitude.? --Erle Stanley Gardner
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_?Raymond Chandler invented a new way of talking about America, and America has never looked the same to us since.? --Paul Auster

?[Chandler]?s the perfect novelist for our times. He takes us into a different world, a world that?s like ours, but isn?t. ? --Carolyn See
_
_ -- Review

Early collection of short murder stories written in Chandler’s classic style. Each of these “crime noir” tales includes at least one bleak hotel setting and the consumption of lots of alcohol. Chandler paints quite a picture of 1930’s California from these stories. They are an acquired taste and I am glad I acquired the book! 3+ stars!

The first chapter is his critique of the genre. It is a frank discussion that leaves no doubt as to where his preferences lie, and while his rationale is worthwhile, I can not accept his broad-stroke theme. I must agree with him on Hammett, however. His idea of a hero a working stiff with a moral code certainly shines through in the eight short stories that follow. The scope is wide, the tales are interesting and the outcomes are surprising. Mr. Chandler at his best. I wish there were more.

For mystery writers, Chandler's opening essay is wonderful. One may not agree about all of his points regarding "modern" mystery writing, but it's great to know his approach to the genre and why Philip Marlowe is his particular vehicle to bring us his stories.

As for the rest, we get a chance to see how Chandler progressed as a short story mystery writer. Many of his early tales are bogged down with street lingo of the time, which borders on parody, if not straight comedy. There's also annoying word repetition and strange syntax.

However, "The King in Yellow" is a great indicator of the great books to come. In this tale, Chandler created a great, lingering noir atmosphere and had a stronger lead character. "Nevada Gas" is intriguing because of Chandler's approach to the lead male, and he plays with narrative in ways we don't see later on. In early stories, he presents scenes without his lead character, which he avoids when writing Marlowe.

Chandler has stuck to a similar beat in all of works, whether they include the iconic Marlowe or not: Detective entering the crime scene only to distort the murder scene and even take something with him, women of questionable character that toy with the lead male's brain, bad cops who come off like criminals with badges, seemingly calm and calculating criminal masterminds, and the lead PI getting himself in a jam with the law. Plus, Chandler had a thing with missing pearls causing a ruckus.

Although the stories aren't perfect, it helps us appreciate where Chandler took his writing. The only real problem: Like many readers, I wish Chandler had been more prolific and left us with more.

This is a collection of early Raymond Chandler tales, including the amusing, non-fiction title piece, where Chandler states that the British murder mysteries are unrealistic, dull and are basically ass. The fiction stuff, which don’t include his signature character, Phillip Marlowe, is okay. The highlights include a tale about a sleazy band leader and something about yellow jammies and the one titled “Spanish Blood”, which is the best of the bunch.

The title is the same as Chandler's classic essay that redefined the detective novel, taking it out of the mannered parlors of English cozy mysteries and out of the hands of amateurs and slapping it in the middle of mean American streets where violence is a bloody but everyday affair and the detective is a loner with a code, but not necessarily a nice guy. Chandler, along with Hammett and Cain, invented the hard-boiled detective genre, which I consider an American art form.