About Dashiell Hammett

Dashiell Hammett was born 27 May 1894, St Mary's County, Maryland, to Richard Hammett and Mary Bond. He joined the Baltimore branch of Pinkerton Detective Agency in 1915. He later enlisted in Ambulance Corps in June 1918 and was posted to camp 20 miles from Baltimore, where he caught the flu, which developed into tuberculosis. He was invalided out of the army in July 1919, and returned to Pinkerton's. Hammett entered the veterans hospital near Tacoma, Washington, with tuberculosis in 1920.

Upon his release, he worked at Pinkerton's Spokane branch. Hospitalized again with tuberculosis, where he met and courted a nurse, Josephine Dolan. In February 1921, Hammett was moved to an army hospital near San Diego. On release, he married pregnant Jose in San Francisco.

Hammett worked for the San Francisco branch of Pinkerton's, but left Pinkerton's in 1921 or 22 due to ill health. He took a writing course and sold droll vignettes to The Smart Set during 1922, and some short stories to other magazines. He began to sell detective stories to The Black Mask from 1923.

After Jose bore their second daughter in 1926, Hammett gave up freelance writing and became an advertising copy writer for jeweler Albert Samuels. Resigned after six months due to ill health. Tuberculosis forced Hammett to live apart from Jose and children; the marriage breaks down.

Hammett supported himself through writing, chiefly for The Black Mask, now under editor Joe Shaw. Hammett's long short stories were republished in novel form by Alfred Knopf. In 1929, Hammett moved to New York. After the success of The Maltese Falcon, Hammett was engaged as writer by Paramount and moved to Hollywood, where he met Lillian Hellman. He returned to New York in 1931, where he wrote The Glass Key. The Thin Man was published as a magazine serial in 1933.

Hammett was encouraged by Hearst to write the Secret Agent X9 comic strip, 1934-35, his last original work. In 1942, Hammett re-enlisted in the army, was posted to Aleutians where he edited The Adakian. When discharged in 1945, he returned to New York and became President of NY Civil Rights Congress.

In July 1951, Hammett was called to testify on Civil Rights Congress bail fund, and was jailed for refusing to answer questions. On release, the IRS demanded $111,000 in back-taxes. With failing health, lived off and on with Hellman. Admitted to Lenox Hill Hospital, New York, where he died 10 January 1961.

Novels
Red Harvest (1927)
The Dain Curse (1929)
The Maltese Falcon (1930)
The Glass Key (1931)
The Thin Man (1972)

Short Story Collections
$106,000 Blood Money (1943), published as The Big Knockover (1948)
The Adventures of Sam Spade (1944)
The Continental Op (1945)
A Man Called Spade (1945)
The Return of the Continental Op (1945)
Dead Yellow Women (1947)
Nightmare Town (1948)
Creeping Siamese (1950)
Woman in the Dark (1951)
A Man Named Thin (1962)

New York Times Editorial (published on Dashiell Hammett's death) - January 12, 1961

"Charles Poore remarked that one of the most uncomfortable trips he ever took was an ocean voyage on which he had read a defective copy of a Dashiell Hammett novel. The last few pages were missing.

This is about the best that can be said for a writer, although many another more resounding statement might be made about Dashiell Hammett. His prose was clean and entirely unique. His characters were as sharply and economically defined as any in American fiction. His stories were as consistent as mathematics and as intricate as psychology. His gift of invention never tempted him beyond the limits of credibility. The Latin scholar responded to the classic precision of his language and the comic strip reader to the excitement of his plots.

Dashiell Hammett died the other day, and it is this sad news that leads us to make a prediction: Years from now his stories will be in print."'