Fine Literature & Modern Firsts

HAMMETT, Dashiell (1894–1961). The Maltese Falcon. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1930. 8vo. Original publisher’s light gray cloth stamped with a dark grayish blue falcon within black singe–rule frame on upper cover, spine stamped in black and grayish blue, blue top edge; original price–clipped dust jacket (small chip along the foot of spine and bottom of front panel, expert reinforcement to spine and flap folds verso, jacket slightly trimmed along top edge, minor toning); custom cloth folding box by Dragonfly Bindery. Provenance: Chas. E. Lauriat Co. (booksellers’ ticket). FIRST EDITION of one of the most influential detective novels ever written, in the extraordinarily rare original FIRST ISSUE dust jacket with the summary printed on the front flap instead of the blurbs as seen in later printings. Considered to be “Hammett’s finest work, this is possibly the best American detective novel ever written. Whatever its merits, this and the two earlier Hammett novels established the American hard–boiled private–eye novel as a subgenre of crime fiction unique to the United States” (The Top 100 Mystery Novels of All Time, 2). First serialized in Black Mask beginning in September 1929, The Maltese Falcon introduced the world to detective Sam Spade. “There had been hard–boiled heroes, as they were called, before [Sam Spade]. But into these stereotypes Hammett put a charge that made Spade a folk hero for his times, and perhaps still for ours” (Crime and Mystery: The 100 Best Books, 16). Layman A.3.1.a.