Dashiell Hammett

First edition in book form of the hard-boiled classic, in which private detective Sam Spade chases a valuable artifact with the femme fatale Brigid O’Shaughnessy.

• Dashiell Hammett (American).
• New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1930.
• [8], 267, [1] pages.
• Pencil ownership inscription dated 1930 on front end paper.
• Bound in original gray cloth, falcon design in blue on front board, spine stamped in blue and black, publisher’s device on rear board, black topstain and fore-edge machine deckle.
• Housed in custom black quarter goatskin clamshell box.

Hammett, a former Pinkerton detective, was one of the primary pioneers of a distinctly American strain of detective fiction: the hard-boiled. The Maltese Falcon contains

many of the key traits of the genre, including a gritty setting (in this case, 1920s San Francisco), morally ambiguous characters where no one seems entirely “good,” and an isolated, lone-wolf protagonist who lacks the gentlemanly demeanor of famous antecedents like Sherlock Holmes. It was first published in a series of five issues of The Black Mask, beginning September 1929. Although the book didn’t live up to Knopf’s hopes, selling about a tenth of the copies A Farewell to Arms did the previous year, it was vaulted to icon status with the 1941 noir film, starring Humphrey Bogart and Mary Astor.