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The Dain Curse

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The Dain Curse

by HAMMETT, DASHIELL

  • Used
  • Hardcover
  • first
Condition
See description
Seller
Seller rating:
This seller has earned a 5 of 5 Stars rating from Biblio customers.
Santa Barbara, California, United States
Item Price
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About This Item

New York: Knopf, 1929. Second printing (August 1929). Book is identical to the first printing in format and binding. Usual light shelf wear and dust soiling to cloth. Tiny vintage fountain pen signature and place on front pastedown. Very good in an excellent facsimile first edition dust jacket.

Synopsis

Dashiell Samuel Hammett was born in St. Mary’s County. He grew up in Philadelphia and Baltimore. Hammett left school at the age of fourteen and held several kinds of jobs thereafter—messenger boy, newsboy, clerk, operator, and stevedore, finally becoming an operative for Pinkerton’s Detective Agency. Sleuthing suited young Hammett, but World War I intervened, interrupting his work and injuring his health. When Sergeant Hammett was discharged from the last of several hospitals, he resumed detective work. He soon turned to writing, and in the late 1920s Hammett became the unquestioned master of detective-story fiction in America. In The Maltese Falcon (1930) he first introduced his famous private eye, Sam Spade. The Thin Man (1932) offered another immortal sleuth, Nick Charles. Red Harvest (1929), The Dain Curse (1929), and The Glass Key (1931) are among his most successful novels. During World War II, Hammett again served as sergeant in the Army, this time for more than two years, most of which he spent in the Aleutians. Hammett’s later life was marked in part by ill health, alcoholism, a period of imprisonment related to his alleged membership in the Communist Party, and by his long-time companion, the author Lillian Hellman, with whom he had a very volatile relationship. His attempt at autobiographical fiction survives in the story “Tulip,” which is contained in the posthumous collection The Big Knockover (1966, edited by Lillian Hellman). Another volume of his stories, The Continental Op (1974, edited by Stephen Marcus), introduced the final Hammett character: the “Op,” a nameless detective (or “operative”) who displays little of his personality, making him a classic tough guy in the hard-boiled mold—a bit like Hammett himself.

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Details

Bookseller
James Pepper Rare Books, Inc. US (US)
Bookseller's Inventory #
16017J
Title
The Dain Curse
Author
HAMMETT, DASHIELL
Book Condition
Used
Binding
Hardcover
Publisher
Knopf
Place of Publication
New York
Date Published
1929

Terms of Sale

James Pepper Rare Books, Inc.

We accept VISA, Mastercard, personal checks, and money orders issued on US Banks. If paying by credit card, please supply the card number, expiration date, and a daytime phone number. We guarantee all items to be as described. We accept returns for any reason, with notification within three days of your receipt of the order. All returns must be shipped insured. Shipping is: $7.00 first item, $1.00 each additional. Foreign orders will be shipped at cost. California residents please add 7.25% sales tax.

About the Seller

James Pepper Rare Books, Inc.

Seller rating:
This seller has earned a 5 of 5 Stars rating from Biblio customers.
Biblio member since 2005
Santa Barbara, California

About James Pepper Rare Books, Inc.

We are long-term members of the Antiquarian Bookseller's Association of America. We specialize in American & English Literature, Mystery & Detective Fiction, Rare Cinema Material, Autograph & Signed Material, and an Eclectic Offering of Literature & Ephemera.

Glossary

Some terminology that may be used in this description includes:

Facsimile
An exact copy of an original work. In books, it refers to a copy or reproduction, as accurate as possible, of an original...
Shelf Wear
Shelf wear (shelfwear) describes damage caused over time to a book by placing and removing a book from a shelf. This damage is...
Cloth
"Cloth-bound" generally refers to a hardcover book with cloth covering the outside of the book covers. The cloth is stretched...
First Edition
In book collecting, the first edition is the earliest published form of a book. A book may have more than one first edition in...
Jacket
Sometimes used as another term for dust jacket, a protective and often decorative wrapper, usually made of paper which wraps...

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