Books

First edition of the author's landmark first book, with the earliest issue of the dust jacket with the plot summary on the rear panel. The earliest issue is so rare that Richard Layman describes only a later issue with reviews from The Bookman, The Outlook, and The Chicago Post. Red Harvest, which was originally published in four issues of Black Mask from November 1927 to February 1928, is acclaimed as the foundational text in the hardboiled detective genre, giving a darker cynical twist to the classic great detective figure exemplified by Sherlock Holmes. Drawing from his personal experiences as an operative with the Pinkerton Detective Agency, Hammett portrayed a seedy, violent milieu inhabited by gangsters, corrupt cops, and flawed detectives hired to clean up the place. André Gide called Red Harvest "a remarkable achievement, the last word in atrocity, cynicism, and horror." "Hammett took murder out of the Venetian vase and dropped it into the alley... He wrote at first (and almost to the end) for people with a sharp, aggressive attitude to life. They were not afraid of the seamy side of things; they lived there. Violence did not dismay them; it was right down their street" (Raymond Chandler, "The Simple Art of Murder"). Octavo. Original red cloth, spine decoratively stamped in yellow and black with publisher's name lettered in yellow, single-line border to front cover in black with skull-and-crossbones ornament in yellow, rear cover with publisher's device in black, top edge green. With dust jacket. Housed in a custom black morocco-backed folding box. Title page printed in orange and black with skull-and-crossbones vignette in orange. Spine tips slightly bumped, small mark to front cover, very minor browning; a near-fine copy. Some light foxing and browning to dust jacket with extremities slightly frayed and occasional closed tears; a vibrant and very good example. Layman A1.1.a.

Red Harvest is a gritty crime novel by Dashiell Hammett that follows an unnamed detective, the Continental Op, as he uncovers the corruption in a bleak, crime-ridden town called Personville.