Hammett, Dashiell

8vo, FIRST EDITION, original grey cloth, spine blocked in black and blue, upper board stamped with falcon design in blue and ruled in black, lower board with Borzoi Books imprint in lower right corner, top edge blue, DUST-JACKET, collector's folding yellow morocco backed black box, price-clipped jacket lightly worn at extremities with chip at foot of spine, repaired tear to lower panel

Layman A.1.1.b

Condition is described in the main body of the cataloguing, where appropriate.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
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FIRST EDITION IN DUST-JACKET OF HAMMETT'S THIRD NOVEL, AN ARCHETYPE IN DETECTIVE FICTION.

Hammett himself had first-hand experience as a private detective, having worked for the Pinkerton National Detective Agency between 1915 and 1922. Writing in the introduction to the 1934 edition of his novel, Hammett described his central character of Sam Spade as "what most of the private detectives I worked with would like to have been and in their cockier moments thought they approached. For your private detective does not...want to be an erudite solver of riddles in the Sherlock Holmes manner; he wants to be a hard and shifty fellow, able to take care of himself in any situation, able to get the best of anybody he comes in contact with..."

Hammett's employment of his own experiences in writing novel stretched further than just his choice of genre: Hammett used his home at 891 Post Street, San Francisco where he lived whilst writing The Maltese Falcon and his two preceding novels as the model for Spade's apartment in the novel. 

The Maltese Falcon was serialised in five parts in Black Mask between September 1929 and January 1930, and was first published in book form in February the same year. It was reprinted seven times in its first year of publication. In 1931 Warner bought the rights to the novel for $8,500 after which it was adapted for the screen three times: in 1931, 1936 (titled Satan met a Lady) and 1941.

The influence of Hammett's most significant novel has been enduring. Raymond Chandler drew strongly on Sam Spade to create his Philip Marlowe, and later remarked of the author: "he was spare, frugal, hard-boiled, but he did over and over again what only the best writers can ever do...he wrote scenes that seemed never to have been written before."