The Maltese Falcon.

HAMMETT, Dashiell.

Item Number: 122876

New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1930.

First edition of one of the earliest and most influential detective novels ever written. Octavo, original cloth. Fine in a near fine first-issue dust jacket priced at 2.00 with the dust-jacket blurb quotes Joseph Shaw, editor of Black Mask, “We want to go on record as saying that this story is a marvelous piece of writing – the finest detective story it has ever been our privilege to read in book form, in any magazine of any kind, or in manuscript…” with some expert restoration. Rare and desirable, as most examples have been price-clipped.

Originally serialized in Black Mask Magazine in 1929, Dashiell Hammet's The Maltese Falcon is considered to be the first hard-boiled detective novel and the progenitor of the genre. The third-person narrative unfolds in San Francisco where private detective Sam Spade is hired to follow Floyd Thursday, the man who has run off with his client, Miss Wonderly's sister. Multiple shootings, romance, and intrigue prevail as Spade is led on a wild goose chase to secure the title object, a foot-high black statuette of unknown but substantial value. The novel was adapted for the screen four times, the third and best-known version, filmed in 1941, is considered to be a film-noir classic starring Humphrey Bogart and Mary Astor.