by Nathan Ward
3 Johnson, Dashiell Hammett, p. 126.
4 These titles are assembled from a number of interviews and letters over the years, one of them given quickly to a Los Angeles Times reporter who found Hammett on his way to visit his daughter in LA.
5 Hammett, Selected Letters, p. 417.
6 Raymond Chandler, The Simple Art of Murder (New York: Vintage Crime, 1988), p. 15.
7 Hellman, An Unfinished Woman, p. 54.
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
BOOKS
Asbury, Herbert. The Barbary Coast: An Informal History of the San Francisco Underworld. New York: Garden City Publishing, 1933.
Barry, John M. The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History. New York: Penguin, 2004.
Blum, Howard. Dark Invasion. 1915: Germany’s Secret War and the Hunt for the First Terrorist Cell in America. New York: HarperCollins, 2014.
Burnett, W. R. Little Caesar. New York: Avon, 1945. First published 1929 by Dial Press.
Chandler, Raymond. The Simple Art of Murder. New York: Vintage Crime, 1988.
——. Trouble Is My Business. New York: Vintage Crime, 1992.
Dashiell, Benjamin Jones. Dashiell Family Records, Vols. 1–3. Baltimore, MD: B. H. Dashiell, 1928–1932.
Dillon, Richard H. Hatchet Men: The Story of the Tong Wars in San Francisco’s Chinatown. Fairfield and Vacaville: JSP Pub, 1962.
Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan. The Valley of Fear. New York: Berkley Publishing, 1915.
Edwords, Clarence E. Bohemian San Francisco: Its Restaurants and Their Most Famous Recipes. San Francisco, CA: Paul Elder and Company, 1914.
Fenton, Charles A. The Apprenticeship of Ernest Hemingway: The Early Years. New York: Viking, 1954.
Friedman, Morris. The Pinkerton Labor Spy. Chatsworth, CA: Wilshire Book Co., 1907.
Glasscock, C. B. The War of the Copper Kings. Helena, MT: Riverbend Publications, 2002. First published 1935 by The Bobbs-Merrill Co.
Hammett, Dashiell. The Big Knockover. New York: Vintage Crime, 1989.
——. Blood Money. New York: Dell, 1947.
——. The Continental Op. New York: Dell, 1945.
——. The Continental Op. Edited by Steven Marcus. New York: Vintage, 1992.
——. The Dain Curse. New York: Vintage, 1989.
——. Dashiell Hammett: Selected Letters, 1921-1960. Edited by Richard Layman, and Julie M. Rivett. Berkeley, CA: Counterpoint, 2001.
——. Dead Yellow Women. New York: Laurence E. Spivak, 1947.
——. The Glass Key. New York: Vintage, 1989.
——. Hammett: Crime Stories and Other Writings. New York: Library of America, 2001.
——. The Hunter and Other Stories. Edited by Richard Layman and Julie M. Rivett. (New York: Mysterious Press, 2013).
——. Lost Stories. Edited by Vince Emery. San Francisco, CA: Vince Emery Productions, 2005.
——. The Maltese Falcon. New York: Vintage, 1992. First published 1930 by Alfred A. Knopf.
——. The Maltese Falcon. New York: Modern Library, 1934.
——. A Man Called Spade and Other Stories. New York: Dell, 1944.
——. Nightmare Town: Stories. New York: Vintage Crime, 1999.
——. Red Harvest. New York: Vintage Crime, 1992. First published 1929 by Alfred A. Knopf.
——. The Return of the Continental Op. New York: Dell, 1945.
——. Return of the Thin Man. Edited by Richard Layman and Julie M. Rivett. New York: Mysterious Press, 2012.
——. The Thin Man. New York: Vintage, 1972. First published 1933 by Alfred A. Knopf.
——. Woman in the Dark: A Novel of Dangerous Romance. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1933.
Hammett, Jo. Dashiell Hammett: A Daughter Remembers. Edited by Richard Layman and Julie M. Rivett. New York: Carroll and Graf, 2001.
Hellman, Lillian. Scoundrel Time. New York: Bantam, 1976.
——. An Unfinished Woman. New York: Bantam, 1974.
Herron, Don. The Dashiell Hammett Tour. San Francisco, CA: Emery/Ace Performer, 2009.
Holt, Patricia. The Good Detective: True Cases from the Confidential Files of Hal Lipset, America’s Real-Life Sam Spade. New York: Pocket, 1991.
Horan, James D., and Howard Swiggett. The Pinkerton Story. New York: Putnam, 1951.
Johnson, Diane. Dashiell Hammett: A Life. New York: Fawcett Columbine, 1983.
Johnson, Paul C. The Early Sunset Magazine, 1898–1928. San Francisco, CA: California Historical Society, 1973.
Layman, Richard, ed. Discovering the Maltese Falcon and Sam Spade. San Francisco, CA: Vince Emery Productions, 2005.
——, ed. Literary Masters Volume 3: Dashiell Hammett. Farmington Hills, MI: Gale, 2000.
——. Shadow Man: The Life of Dashiell Hammett. New York: Harvest/Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1981.
Lukas, J. Anthony. Big Trouble: A Murder in a Small Western Town Sets off a Struggle for the Soul of America. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1997.
MacKay, James. Allan Pinkerton: The First Private Eye. New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1996.
McWatters, George S. Knots Untied: Or, Ways and By-Ways in the Hidden Life of American Detectives. Hartford, CT: J. B. Burr and Hyde, 1871.
Meade, Marion. Lonelyhearts: The Screwball World of Nathanael West and Eileen McKenney. New York: Mariner/Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 2010.
Mellow, James B. Charmed Circle. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 1974.
Morn, Frank. The Eye That Never Sleeps: A History of the Pinkerton National Detective Agency. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1975.
Nolan, William. Dashiell Hammett: A Casebook. Santa Barbara, CA: McNally and Loftin, 1969.
——. Hammett: A Life at the Edge. New York: Congdon and Weed, 1983.
O’Brien, Robert. This Is San Francisco: A Classic Portrait of the City. San Francisco, CA: Chronicle Books, 1994. First published 1948 by Whittlesey House.
Penzler, Otto, ed. The Black Lizard Big Book of Black Mask Stories. New York: Vintage Crime/Black Lizard, 2010.
Perelman, S. J. The Last Laugh: The Final Word from the First Name in Satire. Guilford, CT: Lyons Press, 2000.
Pinkerton, Allan. The Model Town and the Detectives. New York: G. W. Dillingham, 1876.
——. The Mollie Maguires and the Detectives. G. W. Dillingham, 1877.
——. The Expressman and the Detective. Chicago: W. B. Keen, Cooke, 1874.
——. Thirty Years a Detective. Warwick, NY: 1500 Books, 2007.
Poe, Edgar Allan. Great Short Works of Edgar Allan Poe. New York: Perennial, 1970.
Punke, Michael. Fire and Brimstone: The North Butte Mining Disaster of 1917. New York: Hyperion, 2006.
Riffenburgh, Beau. Pinkerton’s Great Detective: The Amazing Life and Times of James McParland. New York: Viking, 2013.
Rothman, Sheila. Living in the Shadow of Death: Tuberculosis and the Social Experience of Illness in American History. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994.
Stanford, Sally. The Lady of the House. New York: Putnam, 1966.
Stewart, Donald Ogden, ed. Fighting Words. Harcourt Brace, 1940.
Stiles, T. J. Jesse James: Last Rebel of the Civil War. New York: Vintage, 2003.
Summerscale, Kate. The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher. New York: Bloomsbury, 2008.
Symons, Julian. Dashiell Hammett. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1985.
Thompson, Josiah. Gumshoe. New York: Fawcett, 1988.
Triplett, Frank. The Life, Times, and Treacherous Death of Jesse James. Columbus, OH: The Swallow Press, 1970. First published 1882 by J.H. Chambers & Co., Chicago.
Vidocq, François Eugene. Memoirs of Vidocq: Master of Crime. Oakland, CA: AK Press/Nabat, 2003.
Wright Cobb, Sally, and Mark Willems. The Brown Derby Restaurant. New York: Rizzoli, 1996.
PERIODICALS
“All Sonoma Minted Gold Found; Sailor Suspected.” San Francisco Chronicle, Dec. 2, 1921, p. 1.
“The Ambush of William Rice.” (Cleveland) Plain Dealer Sunday Magaz
ine, May 4, 1941.
“Boston Women Laud Finger Print Plan.” Finger Print and Identification Magazine, 4, no. 1 (July 1922): 4.
Chandler, Raymond. “Writers in Hollywood.” The Atlantic, Nov. 1945.
“Charges Rice Death to ‘Rich Interests.’”(Cleveland) Plain Dealer, Jan. 12, 1911, p. 1.
Daly, John Jay. “Secrets of the Secret Service.” (Uniontown, PA) Daily News Standard, April 5, 1939, p. 11.
“Daring Thieves Rob Woman of $3000 in Gems.” San Francisco Chronicle, Nov. 20, 1920, p. 6.
“Dashiell Hammett Has Hard Words for Tough Stuff He Used to Write.” Los Angeles Times, June 7, 1950, p. A3.
“Deed Executed with Finger Prints.” Editorial. Finger Print and Identification Magazine 2, no. 4 (Oct. 1920): 2.
“Ex-Pastor, Held as Thief, Admits Many Burglaries.” San Francisco Chronicle, Jan. 13, 1922, p. 1.
Farbstein W. E. “Technique of Stopping a Run on a Bank.” New York Herald Tribune, April 26, 1931, p. 10.
Fechheimer, David. “Dashiell Hammett’s San Francisco.” Special issue City of San Francisco magazine 9, no. 17, Nov. 4, 1975.
“Fiction Wrong about Sleuths, Moving Pictures Mirror Them Truthfully, Says Pinkerton.” San Francisco Chronicle, June 21, 1922, p. 16.
“Greater Study of Crime Urged by Police Head.” San Francisco Chronicle, Aug. 2, 1922, p. 11.
Hammett, Dashiell. “Albert Pastor at Home.” Esquire: The Quarterly for Men. Autumn 1933, p. 34.
“Hammett Will Do Stage Play.” Los Angeles Times, May 29, 1934, p. 10.
“Have Sworn to Destroy the Rulers of China.” San Francisco Call 83, no. 40 (Jan. 9, 1898): 1. The Call’s reporter goes undercover into the Tong gangs of San Francisco.
“The Issue in Butte.” The New Republic, Sept. 22, 1917, pp. 215–16.
The Jewelers’ Circular 83, no. 2 (Nov. 16, 1921). For quote from Phil Geauque about jewel thief, p. 121.
Lieber, Fritz. “Stalking Sam Spade.” California Living, Jan. 13, 1974.
“Oakland Captive Found Guilty of St. Paul Robbery.” San Francisco Chronicle, June 25, 1922, p. B1.
“Oakland Police Arrest Two in $130,000 Theft.” San Francisco Chronicle, March 11, 1922, p. 13.
“$104,000 Sonoma Gold Recovered; Three Held.” San Francisco Chronicle, Nov. 29, 1921, p. 1.
Pierpont, Claudia Roth. “Tough Guy: The Mystery of Dashiell Hammett.” New Yorker, Feb. 11, 2002, pp. 66–75.
“Pinkerton Here to Curb Crooks.” San Francisco Chronicle, Feb. 8, 1915, p. 12.
“Pinkerton Man Retires.” San Francisco Chronicle, Oct. 22, 1902, p. 14.
“Pinkerton Men Finish Work on Liquor Robbery.” San Francisco Chronicle, March 6, 1922, p. 2.
“Pinkertons Claim Rice Case Solved.” (Cleveland) Plain Dealer, Feb. 15, 1912, p. 1.
“Quartet Holds Up Officials on Cable Car.” San Francisco Chronicle, Jan. 4, 1922, p. 1.
Rivett, Julie M. “On Samuel Spade and Samuel Dashiell Hammett: A Granddaughter’s Perspective.” Clues: A Journal of Detection 23, no. 2 (Winter 2005): 11–20.
Roberts, Charles. “The Cushman Indian Trades School and World War I.” American Indian Quarterly 11, no. 3 (Summer 1987): 221–39.
Saltzstein, Dan. “San Francisco Noir.” New York Times, June 6, 2014, Travel section, p. 1.
Scheuer, Philip K. “Career as Detective Gives Mystery Writer No ‘Ideas.’” Los Angeles Times, Nov. 11, 1934, p. A3.
“S.F. Cable Car Bandit Suspect Under Arrest.” San Francisco Chronicle, Jan. 8, 1922, p. B11.
Sherwood, E. “A Jeweler Pays for Advertising Lost Articles.” Printer’s Ink 111 (May 20, 1920): p.137.
“Sleuths Begin Man Hunt for Members of Menlo Park Crew of Bandits.” San Francisco Chronicle, March 3, 1922, p. 3.
“Sleuths Shoot at Cable Car Bandit Suspect.” San Francisco Chronicle, Jan. 9, 1922, p. 3.
Stein, Gertrude. “Why I Like Detective Stories.” Harper’s Bazaar, Nov. 1937.
“Stolen Gold Removed Here, Say Officials.” San Francisco Chronicle, Nov. 26, 1921, p. 3.
“Super Police Trail Thieves by Radio.” San Francisco Chronicle, Oct. 9, 1921, p. E1.
“Suspected Murderer from East Captured.” San Francisco Chronicle, Feb. 22, 1911, p. 12.
“Swindler Uses Novel Plan to Escape Police.” San Francisco Chronicle, March 29, 1921, p. 11.
Trobits, Monika. “Dashiell Hammett’s San Francisco in the 1920s.” The Argonaut: Journal of the San Francisco Museum and Historical Society (Winter 2011): 36.
“Tuberculosis Victims to be Rehabilitated.” San Francisco Chronicle, July 2, 1922, p. F4.
“Victims of Daylight Robbery on Street Car.” San Francisco Chronicle, Jan. 4, 1922, p. 2.
“Warrant for Quartermaster Of Sonoma Issued in Theft of $122,000 Gold on Liner.” San Francisco Chronicle, Dec. 3, 1921, p. 3.
Watts, Richard Jr. “A Defense of Gangster Films.” New York Herald Tribune, April 26, 1931, p. 4.
ARCHIVES
Butte–Silver Bow Public Archives.
Brooklyn Historical Society/Othmer Library.
Harry Ransom Center/University of Texas at Austin.
Homestead (FL) Historic Town Hall Museum.
New York City Municipal Archives.
New York Public Library (Forty-Second Street branch).
New York University/Bobst Library.
Pinkerton’s National Detective Agency Records, 1853–1999, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
San Francisco History Center/San Francisco Public Library (main branch).
WEBSITES AND BLOGS
Ancestry (www.ancestry.com)
For census and military records, including Hammett’s draft registration, and family tree. See where he lived when and what he was calling himself.
The Dashiell Hammett Website (www.mikehumbert.com)
An excellent gathering place for Hammett fans, with photo galleries, Hammett news, and a publishing chronology that is as helpful as it is beautiful.
Detnovel (www.DetNovel.com)
A good background resource for short bios and novel encapsulations.
January Magazine (januarymagazine.com)
See Richard Layman, “There’s Only One Maltese Falcon,” Feb. 15, 2005.
Montana Professor: A Journal of Education, Politics, and Culture (http://mtprof.msun.edu)
See Jack Crowley, “Red Harvest and Dashiell Hammett’s Butte,” The Montana Professor 18, no. 2 (Spring 2008).
Only in Butte (www.butteamerica.com/hist.htm)
See George Everett’s “The Seeds of Red Harvest: Dashiell Hammett’s Poisonville.”
San Francisco City Directories Online (http://sfpl.org/index.php?pg=2000540401)
The History Center at the San Francisco Public Library also has many of its holdings online, such as city directories over the years, helpful for tracking Hammett’s moves around his adopted town.
SFGate (www.SFGate.com)
See Marianne Constantinou, “This Aspiring Poet Read The Maltese Falcon and His Life was Transformed,” Feb. 15, 2005.
SFWeekly (www.SFWeekly.com)
See “Best Private Investigator,” May 11, 2011.
Smithsonian (www.smithsonian.com)
See Megan Gambino, “When Gertrude Stein Toured America,” Oct. 14, 2011; also Gilbert King, “The Skinny on the Fatty Arbuckle Trial,” Nov. 8, 2011.
Strand Magazine (www.StrandMag.com)
A serious and lush revival publication devoted largely to Sherlock Holmes, but which made news recently with several “lost” Hammett stories. Also features interviews with current mystery authors and excerpts from new works.
Thrilling Detective (http://www.thrillingdetective.com)
Among its hard-boiled offerings, this site ran the now-famous photograph of the gathering of West Coast Black Mask contributors at which Chandler and Hammett met.
Up and Down These Mean Streets (www.donherron.com)
In Don Herron’s blog, “Hammett: P
laying the Sap” March 5, 2011, and so many other entries on this vital Hammett site run by the town crier of the hard-boiled world and founder of the city’s famous Hammett tour. All things Hammett eventually go through Don’s website, hopefully with his commentary.
Up from the Deep (http://upfromthedeep.com)
Especially strong for its architectural survey of the historical Tenderloin.
The Virtual Museum of the City of San Francisco (http://www.sfmuseum.org)
A research site for scholars and buffs or families researching their San Francisco history. It offers terrific slide shows as well as its Register of the 1906 dead in the earthquake and fire.
Weekly Standard (www.WeeklyStandard.com)
See Lauren Weiner, “The Bull of Baltimore,” Nov. 10, 2010.
INDEX
Note: page numbers followed by n refer to notes
Action Stories (periodical), here
Albert Samuels Jewelers, here
Hammett’s employment at, here, here, here
Alfred A. Knopf Publishers. See Knopf Publishers
American Magazine, here
Anaconda, Montana
Jose Hammett’s visits to, here, here, here, here
Jose Hammett’s youth in, here, here
as setting in Hammett’s fiction, here
Anderson, Robert Mailer, here
Arbuckle, Fatty, here, here, here
Argosy All-Story (periodical), here
Arney, Bill, here
Asbury, Herbert, here
Atlantic Monthly, here
Bancroft, George, here
Barnaby, Josephine, here
Barry, John M., here
Bidwell, Austin, here
Big Trouble (Lukas), heren1
The Black Mask (periodical)
contributors party (1936), here
demand for action in stories, here
founding of, here
Hammett as prominent contributor to, here, here
Hammett’s departure from, here
Hammett’s return to, here, here
Hammett stories in, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here
Hammett stories rejected by, here
rate of pay at, here, here, here