The Big Sleep and Other Novels

Raymond Chandler created the fast-talking, trouble-seeking Californian private eye Philip Marlowe for his first great novel, 'The Big Sleep', in 1939.

Marlowe's entanglement with the Sternwood family — and an attendant cast of colourful underworld figures — forms the background to a story that reflects the tarnished glitter of the great American Dream.

The detective's iconic image burns just as brightly in 'Farewell My Lovely', where he trails a missing nightclub crooner. In Raymond Chandler's brilliant epitaph, 'The Long Goodbye', the inimitable Marlowe proves that trouble really is his business.