Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site utai.UUCP Path: utzoo!utcsri!utai!gkloker From: gkloker@utai.UUCP (Geoff Loker) Newsgroups: net.books Subject: Re: Dashiell Hammett Books (REVISED/ADDITIONAL INFORMATION) Message-ID: <1274@utai.UUCP> Date: Mon, 10-Feb-86 10:02:50 EST Article-I.D.: utai.1274 Posted: Mon Feb 10 10:02:50 1986 Date-Received: Mon, 10-Feb-86 10:31:56 EST References: <430@tekigm2.UUCP> Reply-To: gkloker@utai.UUCP (Geoff Loker) Distribution: net Organization: CSRI, University of Toronto Lines: 58 Summary: In article <430@tekigm2.UUCP> wrd@tekigm2.UUCP (Bill Dippert) writes: > >The following was sent to me by Geoff Loker of the University of Toronto >Department of Computer Science. The listings he furnished are from a book >entitled "Shadow Man: the Life of Dashiell Hammett" by Richard Lyman. What >is interesting is that the book titles are for the most part different, whether >these are Canadian books or what I do not know. What is more interesting is >that they list story titles not published to my knowledge in the States. A >comparison of story titles shows a totally different arrangement, etc. Since >these were published from 1944 on, they may reflect pre-McCarthy era before >Hammett was blacklisted as a Communist. Any way, for what they are worth: > A list of Hammett books published by Spivak (all edited by Ellery Queen, by the way) > >Can anyone else (Evelyn Leeper or ?) help out with what these books were/are? >Are there in fact some unpublished stories in the U.S. versions? I guess a word of clarification is in order. According to Lyman's bibliography of Hammett's works, the Spivak books were only published in paperback (back in the days when the hardboiled detective fiction wasn't respectable enough for hardcover?). From the look of the dates, it would appear that the publisher was trying to come up with an annual collection of Hammett stories until they ran out. It also looks like Hammett's being blacklisted put an end to that idea. After Hammett became respectable again (after his death, and after the McCarthy scare died down), other collections of his short stories were done, but for some strange reason a good number of the stories which were collected in the Spivak books were put into the new collections. Confusingly enough, at least one of the later collections ("The Continental Op") was given the same title as a Spivak one, but the stories in it weren't all the same. Since the Spivak editions were paperback, they are probably very rare now, and I would hazard a guess that none of them would be available at a local library. The later collections, being hardcover, define what most of us know of Hammett's short stories, and, as Bill Dippert pointed out, do not contain all of the stories that the Spivak books did. According to the bibliography in Lyman's book, Hammett wrote over 70 short stories (as well as a good amount of articles, etc.), so the Spivak edition of Hammett's work doesn't even contain all his short stories. That means that there is a lot of uncollected Hammett out there. If only some publisher would collect it for us. -- Geoff Loker Department of Computer Science University of Toronto Toronto, ON M5S 1A4 USENET: {ihnp4 decwrl utzoo uw-beaver}!utcsri!utai!gkloker CSNET: gkloker@toronto ARPANET: gkloker.toronto@csnet-relay