Dashiell Hammett

Dashiell Hammett (1894-1961), American detective-story writer, born in St Marys County, Maryland. He left school at the age of 13 and travelled and worked throughout the United States. For eight years after World War I he was a private detective, an experience that furnished much of the material for his novels. The first two of these, Red Harvest (1929) and The Dain Curse (1929), met with immediate popularity. The Maltese Falcon (1930), in which Hammett introduced his best-known character, Sam Spade, was the forerunner of a style of “tough” detective fiction.

Hammett is noted especially for realism and unconventional directness of character delineation and dialogue; for the impact of his plot development, often involving graphic descriptions of brutal acts; and for sophisticatedly cynical social attitudes. In The Thin Man (1932), however, Hammett introduced a note of humour.

Many of Hammett's novels were later made into highly popular radio programmes and films, and he spent some years writing screenplays in Hollywood. During the McCarthy era of the late 1940s and early 1950s allegations of pro-Communist activity were levelled against him, and in 1951 he was briefly imprisoned for “un-American activities”. For many years he was the companion of playwright Lillian Hellman, whom he met in 1930.

See Mystery Story.