Books

Advance issue of the 1st edition. Original wrappers (bound into the dustjacket as published). A few page corners lightly pushed and toned, spine faded, rubbing to the extremities, back panel a bit dusty with some small spots, somewhat musty, else very good. The publisher's stamp is on the top page edges (as issued). This perishable state (probably 5% of the 7,500 copy 1st printing) precedes the hardbound issue. Bruccoli A2.1.a. Chandler has managed an additional level of fame, first because unsophisticated readers, with their literal minds, were baffled by his irony, and sought explanations that only intensified the joke, and second because those writers who did not have his acute powers of accurate observation, simplistically scorned them as cynicism. So he remains unequaled by his counterfeiters (those literary equivalents of Judy Garland impersonators), who regarded how he wrote as easy to exceed, if one just wrote "grumpy" and then, of course, they did so inadequately (when they came to shoe the horse, the beetle stretched out his leg), a Haycraft-Queen cornerstone.

Farewell, My Lovely is a detective novel by Raymond Chandler, featuring his iconic private eye Philip Marlowe. First published in 1940, it is Chandler's second novel.

First edition copies have a red cloth cover with dark blue panels on the front cover and spine, with the title and author printed in white. The dust jacket is predominantly orange with black and white photos of the author.