Chandler, Raymond

The Long Good-Bye. London: Hamish Hamilton, 1953



8vo (7 1/4 x 4 3/4 in;185 x 125 mm).  Publisher's dark burgundy cloth with silver spine title in pictorial dust jacket;  loss at tail of spine panel, some minor edge creasing to jacket, top of spine panel rubbed with some chipping.

Bruccoli A10.1.a; Burgess 99

Presentation copy of the true first edition of this Edgar Award winning novel

Inscribed first edition  to Jean Vounder-Davis (formerly Fracasse), Chandler's last secretary and intended fiance, "For: / My adorable Jean / with much love / Ray / La Jolla May 1st, 1957"

The Long Good-bye was Chandler's last major work is seen by many critics as his most  psychologically penetrating novel. Published in England in November, 1953, the American edition appeared in March 1954.  It won him the Edgar Award for Best Mystery in April, 1955, just a few months after the death of his wife, Cissy.

"...The Long Goodbye is beautifully composed, with a taut economical style exactly suited to the narrator Marlowe. If this is not literature, what is?" (Burgess)

"The first time I laid eyes on Terry Lennox he ws drunk in a Rolls-Royce Silver Wraith outside the terrace of the Dancers. The parking lot attendant had brought the car out and he was still holding the door open because Terry Lennox's left foot was still dangling outside, as if he had forgotten he had one ... You could tell by his eyes that he was plastered to the hairline, but otherwise he looked like any other young guy in a dinner jacket who had been spending too much money in a joint that exists for that purpose and for no other." (the famed opening of The Long Good-Bye).

Presentation copies are of the utmost rarity, with none of the first edition appearing at auction in the last 30 years.