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“THE FIRST TODAY—DASHIELL HAMMETT, JANUARY 23, 1930”: EXCEEDINGLY RARE PRESENTATION/ASSOCIATION FIRST EDITIONOF THE MALTESE FALCON, INSCRIBED WEEKS BEFORE PUBLICATION, ONE OF ONLY TWO COPIES WE KNOW OF TO BE INSCRIBED ON THE FIRST DAY HAMMETT RECEIVED THEM FROM KNOPF, ONE TO BLACK MASK PUBLISHER JOSEPH SHAW AND THIS COPY TO HIS FRIEND AND BLACK MASK WRITER, RAOUL WHITFIELD—AMONG THE “BEST OF THE HARD-BOILED WRITERS”

HAMMETT, Dashiell. The Maltese Falcon. New York and London: Alfred A. Knopf, 1930. Octavo, original gray cloth, original dust jacket. Housed in a custom clamshell box.

First edition, first printing of Hammett’s most famous and influential novel, one of the earliest presentation copies (if not the earliest) inscribed by Hammett several weeks before publication and on the very day he received this copy from Knopf to his friend and fellow Black Mask writer Raoul Whitfield and his wife, “To Raoul and Prudence Whitfield—the first today—Dashiell Hammett January 23, 1930.” Hammett is known to have inscribed only two copies on the first day he received them, one to Shaw and this copy to Whitfield and Prudence, who began an intimate affair of many years with Hammett after her divorce from Whitfield in 1933. A stunning presentation copy with a most exceptional association.

In 1995, the Mystery Writers of America ranked The Maltese Falcon second in its top 100 mystery novels of all time (first was Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes works). On publication, the New Republic called the novel “glistening and fascinating,” achieving “an absolute distinction of real art… [and] the genuine presence of myth” (Bruccoli & Layman, 119-20). “The only novel in which the famous Sam Spade appears, regarded by many as 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” (Top 100 Mystery Novels 2). “Hammett made his debut in the October 1, 1923 issue of Black Mask” with a story introducing his Pinkerton agent, The Continental Op. In 1929 Hammett made his debut as a novelist with Red Harvest and The Dain Curse and that same year introduced his famed private eye Sam Spade in the September 1929 issue of Black Mask. “In 1930 Knopf published Hammett’s third novel, The Maltese Falcon, featuring his detective in a nearly unsolvable quest for a statue of the bird to which the title refers… It would become not only his best-loved work, but the foundation of the literature he had invented… A Haycraft Queen cornerstone, and a Keating 100 selection” (Johnson, Dark Page, 132).

Hammett inscribed this most rare presentation/association first edition of The Maltese Falcon to fellow hard-boiled writer Raoul Whitfield and his wife Prudence on the day Hammett received this copy from Knopf, and three weeks before publication. Raoul Whitfield is considered, with Hammett, Chandler and James M. Cain, to be among “the best of the hard-boiled writers” (Johnson, 79). Whitfield’s “writing career, like that of his friend and colleague Dashiell Hammett, lasted exactly eight years… His first contribution to Black Mask (‘Scotty Troubles Trouble,’ March 1926) fit perfectly into the emerging ‘hard-boiled’ mold of tough-talking heroes and non-stop action… Whitfield rapidly became one of that magazine’s most popular and frequently published writers… Of the magazine’s original hard-boiled quartet (Hammett, Whitfield, Gardner and Carroll John Daly), only Hammett and Gardner achieved wider popularity.” Highly prolific and known for inventive plots, Whitfield also wrote under the byline of Ramon Decolta for his Black Mask detective Jo Gar. “In many ways Whitfield’s life mirrored Hammett’s—the flash of a potentially brilliant writing career on the horizon, followed by years of heavy drinking and a decline in story output. Whitfield developed tuberculosis in 1933, but was unable to shake its debilitating effects as Hammett did… According to Prudence Whitfield, Raoul Whitfield and Hammett had a very close friendship that Hammett’s many biographers have only touched upon in passing—possibly because the letters they exchanged no longer exist… Whitfield greatly admired Hammett’s early stories in Black Mask and sent [then] editor Philip C. Cody several letters encouraging him to publish Hammett yarns more often. Those letters, apparently considered fan mail, were forwarded to the author, and launched a lengthy friendship between the two men. They corresponded for several years before meeting in San Francisco for the first time. By then, Whitfield’s own career was well under way and Hammett admired his colleague’s ability to sit before his typewriter and crank out stories in a single session—whereas Hammett agonized over his plots. Prudence Whitfield… remembers Dash always worrying over his stories while Raoul came to his rescue… Hammett and Whitfield met as often as their schedules allowed—usually in San Francisco and New York bars where they held endless discussions about writing detective fiction… Prudence Whitfield was a frequent participant at these drinking sessions… In 1929, perhaps as a gesture to repay his colleague for years of plot development assistance, Hammett introduced Whitfield to Blanche Knopf, his editor at Knopf, and helped launch his brief but crowded book career. Green Ice was published in 1930,” with Hammett praising the novel in a review for the New York Evening Post as “280 pages of naked action pounded into tough compactness by staccato, hammerlike writing.” (Ruber & Berch, “Raoul Whitfield, Black Mask’s Forgotten Man,” Pulprack). Whitfield followed with other popular novels and a brief screenwriting career.

Not long after Raoul and Prudence Whitfield divorced in 1933, she began an intimate affair with Hammett that lasted many years. He encouraged her writing, much as he encouraged that of writer Lillian Hellman. Toward the end of his life Hammett was insistent that neither woman write a biography of him. “When Pru threatened to write of memoir of their friendship, gently he discouraged her. He ‘would prefer that you did not write a book about you and me,’ he told her, ‘just paint a picture of it or something” (Mellen, 400). In a 1943 letter to Hellman, Hammett wrote: “Prue [sic] Whitfield wrote me that Raoul is dying of T.B. in a San Fernando hospital” (Selected Letters of Dashiell Hammett), and Hammett sent the impoverished Whitfield a check for $500. Raoul Whitfield died in 1945 and Prudence Whitfield died many years later in 1990. In 1941 John Huston made his directorial debut with the film adaptation of The Maltese Falcon, starring Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor, Peter Lorre and Sydney Greenstreet. Huston later recalled that Hammett’s novel “was told entirely from the standpoint of Sam Spade, and so too is the picture… This too was something of an innovation at that time” (Pratley, Cinema of John Huston). Serially published in five parts in Black Mask, 1929-30. With a copyright date of February 14, 1930. Crime and Mystery: The 100 Best Books 16. Layman A3.1.a. Tiny penciled notation to front pastedown. Occasional small marginal fingerprint smudges.

Interior generally fresh, minor soiling, edge-wear to cloth; slight edge-wear, small bit of tape reinforcement to verso of bright price-clipped dust jacket. A splendid near-fine inscribed presentation/association copy of exceptional rarity.