Saturday at Zenda. Saturday of Contemporary Classics. Saturday, in this instance, dedicated to Farewell, My Lovely, the second work that the American writer and screenwriter Raymond Chandler (Chicago, 1888 – La Jolla, California, 1959) dedicated to his breakout character: the detective Philip Marlowe. Published in 1940, barely a year after introducing Marlowe to the broad public through his debut novel, The Big Sleep, Chandler let loose with the writing of this book, in which the intensity of his nocturnal atmospheres, the evocative power of his melancholic characters, and that peculiar sense of urban despair reached one of the great peaks in the history of American hard-boiled fiction. The work, with a Spanish translation by César Aira and Juan Manuel Ibeas Delgado, forms part of the catalog of the publishing house DeBolsillo.
The publisher itself notes, about the book: “
Farewell, My Lovely
(1940), considered by many to be the finest work of Raymond Chandler, is his second novel.
The detective Philip Marlowe embarks on the passionate pursuit of a red-haired singer, becomes entangled in the scene of a crime, and must untangle a murky affair of gambling debts.
He will quickly discover that the habit of those around him is to shoot first and ask questions later. This edition also gathers the three pulp tales, published in the magazines Black Mask and Dime Detective, which Chandler cannibalized to write the novel:
The Man Who Loved the Dogs
(1936),
Look for the Girl
(1937) and
The Jade of the Mandarin
(1937).”
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Author: Raymond Chandler. Translation: José Luis López Muñoz. Title: Farewell, My Lovely. Publisher: DeBolsillo. Sales: All Your Books.