Itchy

by Dashiell Hammett

Overview

Brief Stories, January 1924
ITCHY
a.k.a Itchy the Debonair
by Dashiell Hammett

It is said that “Art imitates Nature”—or, to put it another way, “Art imitates Life”; but isn’t true that Life often imitates Art? Here is a wry tale in point.

3500 Words


May 25 1947
The Adventures of Sam Spade
THE CASE OF THE WEB-FOOTED BURGLAR
Comic Strip Advertisement for
Wildroot Cream-Oil
Based on Dashiell Hammett's character
as heard in the Columbia Broadcast System
Radio Show
8 Panels

This edition includes an 8 panel comic strip ad for Wildroot Cream Oil Hair Tonic featuring Dashiell Hammett's detective Sam Spade as heard on the CBS Adventures of Sam Spade radio show.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940014213073
Publisher:	Peril Press
Publication date:	04/05/2012
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Sales rank:	256,870
File size:	20 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

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.

Author biography courtesy of Random House, Inc.

Date of Birth:

May 27, 1894

Date of Death:

January 10, 1961

Place of Birth:

St. Mary, Maryland

Place of Death:

New York

Education:

Baltimore Polytechnic Institute