June 1972 Ballantine reissue, 1st print
cover art by Tom Adams
1977 Ballantine mass market, 3rd print
includes:
“The Simple Art of Murder” (Atlantic Monthly, Dec. 1944)
“Spanish Blood” (Black Mask Magazine, Nov. 1935)
“I’ll Be Waiting” (Saturday Evening Post, Dec. 1939)
“The King in Yellow” (Dime Detective Magazine, Mar. 1938)
“Pearls are a Nuisance” (Dime Detective Magazine, April 1939)
cover art by Whistlin’ Dixie
[covers from owner’s own copies]
June 1973 Ballantine reissue
cover art by Tom Adams
1977 Ballantine mass market, 3rd printing
includes:
introduction by Raymond Chandler, originally from The Simple Art of Murder (Houghton Mifflin, 1950)
“Trouble is My Business” (Dime Detective Magazine, Aug. 1939)
“Finger Man” (Black Mask Magazine, Oct. 1934)
“Goldfish” (Black Mask Magazine, June 1936)
“Red Wind” (Dime Detective Magazine, Jan. 1938)
cover art by Whistlin’ Dixie
[covers from owner’s own copies]
adaptation of Raymond Chandler’s 1940 novel Farewell, My Lovely, his second novel with LA PI Philip Marlowe
cover art by John Fleming Gould
“It’s the McCoy” (Paul Pine) by Erle Stanley Gardner
“The Fugitive Skeleton” (Keyhole Kerry) by Frederick C. Davis
“The Judas Touch” (Acme Indemnity Op) by Jan Dana
“The Lady in the Lake” (John Dalmas) by Raymond Chandler
“One for the Book” by Walter C. Brown
better image than previously posted
February 1960, first US appearance of Chandler’s “Wrong Pigeon”, published posthumously. First publication of the full text. An abridged version had been serialized in the Perth Daily News during May, 1959 as “Marlowe Takes on the Syndicate”. In September of 1965, it was published in Argosy magazine with the title “The Pencil”. It would be published again with that title in the 1988 Doubleday hardcover Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe: A Centennial Celebration
“The ‘Mob’ had a grudge against Marlowe…and thy were out to kill two pigeons with one stone.”
Grosset & Dunlap photoplay hardcover
reissue to accompany the 1946 MGM adaptation directed by Robert Montgomery
First Photoplay Edition of Chandler’s THE LADY IN THE LAKE (1947), nicely inscribed by director and lead actor Robert Montgomery.
[post updated 2/2/25]
1942 Avon digest, Murder Mystery Monthly No.7, first softcover release of this American classic, first softcover release of this American classic
better image than previously posted
cover art by John Drew
~ Raymond Chandler, “Goldfish”, Carmady #2 of 4, ‘see May 1936 issue, p. 127, for comment on RC’, first book appearance Five Murderers (Avon digest, 2/3/44), reprinted in the collection Trouble is My Business (Penguin UK, 1950), The Hard-Boiled Detective, (1977), 9th of 11 stories in BM
~ George Harmon Coxe, “Fall Guy”, 17th of 27 with Flashgun Casey, reprinted in The Black Lizard Big Book of Black Mask Stories (Vintage, 2010), 19th of 31 stories in BM
~ M.A. Gutschow, “The Wild Rose Hermit”, ‘another in the ‘Narrowest Escape’ series, see Charles E. Cox Jr.’, author’s only appearance in BM
~ Nels Leroy Jorgensen, “Two Tickets to Trinidad”, 26th of 32 with Stuart “Black” Burton, ‘square-shooting gambler from the Southwest, often entangled with the law’, 33rd of 39 stories in BM
~ Frederick L. Nebel, “Hard to Take”, 36th of 37 with Captain Steve MacBride and local reporter Kennedy, reprinted in Winter Kill: Complete Cases of MacBride & Kennedy, v.4 (Altus, 2013), 65 of 67 stories in BM
~ Theodore A. Tinsley, “Storm Signal”, ‘16th (of 25) Jerry Tracy capers, columnist on the (NYC) Planet, ‘mixer with poor and rich, the crooked and the straight, trailer of trouble and happiness’, reprinted in Murder Maze: The Complete Black Mask Cases of Jerry Tracy, vol.2 (Steeger 2022), 17th of 26 stories in BM
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