The Maltese Falcon.

HAMMETT, Dashiell.

Item Number: 36051

New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc, 1930.

First edition of one of the earliest and most influential detective novels ever written. Octavo, original cloth. Fine in a near fine unrestored dust jacket with a few minuscule chips to the spine, price clipped as all examples are with a touch of rubbing to the bottom cloth. A superior example. Rare and desirable in this condition. Housed in a custom half morocco clamshell box.

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.