Product Description

Dashiell Hammett, the bestselling creator of Sam Spade, The Maltese Falcon, and The Thin Man, was one of the America’s most entertaining authors, and one of its most influential. Even so, many of Hammett’s stories—including some of his best—have been out of the reach of anyone but a handful of scholars and collectors—until now.

Lost Stories rescues 21 long-lost Hammett stories, all either never published in an anthology or unavailable for decades. Stories range from the first fiction Hammett ever wrote to his last. All stories have been restored to their original versions, replacing often-wholesale cuts with the original text for the first time.

Readers of Hammett's famous mysteries will be surprised by the variety of stories here. They include Hammett's first detective fiction, humorous satires, adventure yarns, a sensitive autobiographical piece, and a tale Ellery Queen promises "is one of the most startling stories you have ever read."

For each story, Hammett researcher Vince Emery tells how Hammett’s life shaped the story and how the story affected his life. Emery’s comments reveal surprises about Hammett’s life not covered in any other book.

To round out this celebration of Hammett, three-time Edgar Award winner Joe Gores has written an introduction describing how Hammett influenced literature, movies, television, and Gores’ own life.

Lost Stories is the first title in The Ace Performer Collection, a new series of books by and about Dashiell Hammett, crowned "the ace performer" by his disciple Raymond Chandler.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #142217 in Books
• Published on: 2005-09-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 352 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Diehard fans of hard-boiled king Dashiell Hammett have craved a collection like this for decades, gathering fiction currently unavailable in book form, plus a handful of tales never reprinted anywhere. Period illustrations embellish certain stories, and the texts often refer to original typescripts. Casual readers, however, may find the overall quality disappointing. Most of the stories are minor. Many are quite brief. A few tales yet remain uncollected, so this is not a one-stop shop, and one of the best from this book, "Night Shade" has already appeared in the Vintage Hammett (2005). As if unsure of the premise, the editor immerses the stories within what is, in effect, a short biography of Hammett written by himself—almost half the total page count. Edgar-winner Joe Gores provides an introduction. (Sept.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
*Starred Review* At first glance, this seems like another bottom-line-driven attempt to collect a famous writer's justly neglected early works. This time, though, that isn't the case. These 21, long-out-of-print stories find Hammett at or near the top his game, his signature hard-boiled style shining brightly, for example, in the original Continental Op stories published in Black Mask in 1924. Hammett's very first story, "The Barber and his Wife," from 1922, is here, too, as is his last story for Collier's, "This Little Pig" (1934), which is presented both with the published ending and with a newly discovered alternate ending. While many anthologies are fairly leaden, with pat introductions presenting the stories, editor and publisher Emery does a fantastic job of bringing Hammett the accomplished writer and Hammett the struggling writer alive. He provides a running commentary, both before and after the stories, placing each work in the context of Hammett's life and development as a writer. There are some wonderful extra touches, too. For example, in the chapter devoted to Hammett's brief career as an advertising man in 1925 (after he temporarily gave up writing to feed his family), Emery includes illustrations of Hammett's ads, featuring the hilarious "Advertising Man Writes a Love Letter." He also includes The Thin Man and the Flack, a 1941 Cameradio production (a radio play with photos) that capitalized on the success of The Thin Man by falsely claiming Hammett as the author. With an insightful introduction by mystery writer Joe Gores. All in all, a splendid collection. Connie Fletcher
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review
"A hugely important book. It belongs on the shelf of every detective fiction reader and collector." -- Otto Penzler, New York Sun

"Great crime fiction started with Hammett." -- James Ellroy

"Hammett was breaking new ground in every book he wrote." -- George Pelecanos

"If not the greatest, Dashiell Hammett is certainly the most important American mystery writer of the twentieth century." -- Tony Hillerman

(starred review)"These 21 [stories] are tough to find. It’s great having them together. Must reading for mystery buffs." -- Michael Rodgers, Library Journal

Customer Reviews

They once were lost, and now are found . . .
Dashiell Hammett was a marvelous writer who virtually single-handedly invented the hard-boiled detective story. Once I discovered Hammett I read every piece of work I could get my hands on. At the time this consisted of his five full length novels and compilations (including The Continental Op and The Big Knockover) of some of his short stories. I never felt as if I had read enough of Hammett. The publication of newly found or little known stories is, therefore, a welcome find. "Nightmare Town" is one such collection. "The Lost Stories" is another and is an excellent discovery for any Hammett fan or any fan of good writing.

There are only 21 stories here, all found in defunct magazines (including H. L. Mencken's Smart Set) and all of which had not appeared in print since their original publication. Standing alone these 21 stories would not be sufficient to warrant a full length book. However, the editor Vince Emery, has set out these stories in chronological order and has written something of a side-by-side biography of Hammett's life and times. This may seem intrusive to those who simply want to read the stories. However, Emery's commentary is very well written and he does a very good job of putting the stories in the context of Hammett's life and of the times. After a good introduction by Joe Gores, a successful mystery writer in his own right, Emery walks the reader through Hammett's life and times. Hammett's transition from a detective struggling with tuberculosis and eking out a meager existence through military disability payments to a successful writer is set out in a concise, well-written fashion. Emery briefly describes the story and Hammett's efforts at selling that story to various publications. Emery does spend a fair amount of time dissecting Hammett's work, exploring common themes, elements, pet phrases and the like. Some may find this a bit too similar to a course in writing for their taste. I found it helpful, others may not.

The stories themselves are fascinating. They may be uneven at times but from the very first one you can see Hammett's voice. Hammett always had an ability to craft a sentence that could describe a person, his attire, or a setting that would take others paragraphs. In one story, "The Green Elephant", Hammett describes a low-level criminal: "Joe's fault, as Doc Haire had once pointed out, was that he wan an unskilled laborer in the world of crime, and therefore had to contend himself with stealing whatever came to hand a slipshod and generally unsatisfactory method."

The Lost Stories is a valuable addition to the Hammett literary canon.

A Real Treasure
Hammett fans, rejoice! This collection of "lost" stories is a real treasure.

Many of the stories are very short (one is a mere paragraph!) and the book is mostly "filler" written by editor Vince Emery but these characteristics are surprises rather than disappointments.

The stories are true Hammett and the "filler" consists of history, background and critical analysis that I found interesting and entertaining.

If you love the writing of Dashiell Hammett you need this book.

By the way, "Lost Stories" is a very handsome volume that displays well with the rest of your Hammett collection.

Hybrid Hammett Biography and Collection of Long-Lost Work.
"Lost Stories" is a compilation of 21 long-unavailable pieces of writing by Dashiell Hammett crossed with a biography by Vince Emery that follows Hammett's life and career in between the stories. I say "pieces of writing" because only about a dozen of them could be called "stories". The pieces range from one-paragraph vignettes to the 41-page story "Laughing Masks". All originally appeared in magazines between 1922 and 1941 and have not been available in recent decades -though "Night Shade" also appears in the "Vintage Hammett" sampler. I recommend "Lost Stories" to Hammett enthusiasts and scholars, not to casual fans. Combining a biography of Hammett with assorted obscure pieces of writing gives less informed readers a misleading picture of Hammett's work, because his best and most iconic work is absent.

Mystery writer Joe Gores introduces "Lost Stories" with discussion of Hammett's influence on 20th century American writers, his style, and themes. The bulk of the book divides Hammett's life into 8 parts, introduced with biographical essays by Vince Emery. Short stories and other writings are included chronologically, in the appropriate sections, often followed by critical analysis by Emery. The first and last sections contain no stories, but relate Hammett's life before he started writing and after World War II. Emery's essays include some info that was new to me in spite of my having read several Hammett biographies. Some of the essays contain too much hyperbole for my taste, however, and the conversions of Hammett's earnings to current dollar values are exaggerated. Emery may be using the unskilled wage rate to convert the values instead of comparing purchasing power using the CPI or GDP Deflator. To estimate current purchasing power, multiply 1930s dollars by 10 or 15.

If you want to make a beeline for the stories without wading through the rest, these are my picks: "The Barber and His Wife", because it's the first story Hammett wrote. The best crime stories in this book are "The Sardonic Star of Tom Doody", "The Joke on Eloise Morey", "Laughing Masks", "The Green Elephant", and "Itchy". Two very disparate stories about a writer are "The Dimple" and "This Little Pig", which comments on a screenwriter's dilemma. "Ber-Bulu" takes place in the 1890s on a Philippine island and is Hammett's only period story.