Editing Raymond Chandler (section)

==Biography==
===Early life===
[[File:Raymond Chandler house, Waterford.jpg|thumb|upright|A [[blue plaque]] marks the house in Cathedral Square where Chandler stayed in [[Waterford]], Ireland.]] 
Chandler was born in 1888 in Chicago, the son of Florence Dart (Thornton) and Maurice Benjamin Chandler.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |title=Raymond Thornton Chandler |date=February 2013 |encyclopedia=[[Columbia Encyclopedia]] }}</ref> He spent his early years in [[Plattsmouth, Nebraska]], living with his mother and father near his cousins and his aunt (his mother's sister) and uncle.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/books/first/h/hiney-chandler.html |title= Chapter One Raymond Chandler| work =The New York Times | access-date = June 2, 2014}}</ref> Chandler's father, a civil engineer who worked for the railway, was alcoholic and abandoned the family in the early 1890s.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://waterfordireland.tripod.com/raymond_chandler.htm| title = Waterfordland}}</ref> To obtain the best possible education for Raymond, his mother, who was originally from Ireland, went to live in England with Raymond in 1900 (in [[Upper Norwood]], now in the London Borough of [[Croydon]]).<ref>{{Citation |title=Census |year=1900 |contribution=Plattsmouth, Nebraska |place=US}}</ref><ref name=":0" /> Raymond lived there with his mother, unmarried aunt, and maternal grandmother between 1901 and 1907.<ref name=":0">{{cite web|url=http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/about-us/search-news/blue-plaque-raymond-chandler |title=Blue Plaque for Raymond Chandler |publisher=[[English Heritage]] |date=October 17, 2014 |access-date=February 20, 2016}}</ref> Another uncle, a successful lawyer in [[Waterford]], Ireland, reluctantly supported them<ref name = "nyrb-12-06-2007">{{cite news | first = Pico | last = Iyer | title = The Knight of Sunset Boulevard | work = New York Review of Books | pages = 31–33 | date = December 6, 2007 |url=http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2007/dec/06/the-knight-of-sunset-boulevard/?pagination=false}}</ref> while they lived in London. Raymond was a first cousin to the actor [[Max Adrian]], a founding member of the Royal Shakespeare Company; Max's mother Mabel was a sister of Florence Thornton. Chandler was classically educated at [[Dulwich College]], London (a [[Public school (United Kingdom)|public school]] whose alumni include the authors [[P. G. Wodehouse]]<ref name="nyrb-12-06-2007" /> and [[C. S. Forester]]). He spent some of his childhood summers in Waterford in Ireland with his mother's family.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://waterfordireland.tripod.com/raymond_chandler.htm | title = Raymond Chandler | work = Waterford Ireland | publisher = Tripod | access-date = July 19, 2012}}</ref> He did not go to university, instead spending time in Paris and [[Munich]] improving his foreign language skills. In 1907, he was naturalized as a [[British subject]] in order to take the [[Civil Service (United Kingdom)|civil service]] examination, which he passed. He then took an [[Admiralty (United Kingdom)|Admiralty]] job, lasting just over a year. His first poem was published during that time.

Chandler disliked the servility of the civil service and resigned, to the consternation of his family. He then became a reporter for the ''[[Daily Express]]'' and also wrote for ''[[The Westminster Gazette]]''.{{sfn|MacShane|1976|p=17}} He was unsuccessful as a journalist, but he published reviews and continued writing [[Romanticism|romantic]] poetry. An encounter with the slightly older [[Richard Barham Middleton]] is said to have influenced him into postponing his career as writer. "I met&nbsp;... also a young, bearded, and sad-eyed man called Richard Middleton.&nbsp;... Shortly afterwards he committed suicide in Antwerp, a suicide of despair, I should say. The incident made a great impression on me, because Middleton struck me as having far more talent than I was ever likely to possess; and if he couldn't make a go of it, it wasn't very likely that I could."  Accounting for that time he said, "Of course in those days as now there were&nbsp;... clever young men who made a decent living as freelances for the numerous literary weeklies", but "I was distinctly not a clever young man. Nor was I at all a happy young man."{{Sfn | Chandler | 1962 | p = 24}}

In 1912, at the age of 24, he borrowed money from his Waterford uncle, who expected it to be repaid with interest, and returned to America, visiting his aunt and uncle before settling in San Francisco for a time, where he took a correspondence course in bookkeeping, finishing ahead of schedule. His mother joined him there in late 1912. Encouraged by Chandler's attorney/oilman friend Warren Lloyd, they moved to Los Angeles in 1913,<ref>{{Citation | contribution = Florence arrives | date = December 1912 | title = Passenger Manifest SS Merion}}</ref> where he strung tennis rackets, picked fruit and endured a time of scrimping and saving. He found steady employment with the Los Angeles Creamery. In 1917, he traveled to Victoria, where in August he enlisted in the 50th Reinforcement Battalion [[Canadian Expeditionary Force]].<ref>{{cite web|last=Hawthorn |first=Tom|title=When Raymond Chandler Came to Victoria to Fight the Great War|url=https://thetyee.ca/Culture/2018/08/14/When-Chandler-Came-Fight-Great-War/|website=[[The Tyee]]|date=August 14, 2018|access-date=October 28, 2023}}</ref> He saw combat in the trenches in France with the 7th Battalion C.E.F. (British Columbia Regiment).<ref>{{cite web|last=Trott|first=Sarah|title=Raymond Chandler and the Trauma of War|url=https://strandmag.com/raymond-chandler-and-the-trauma-of-war/|website=[[The Strand Magazine]]|date=February 16, 2017|access-date=October 28, 2023}}</ref> He was twice hospitalized with [[Spanish flu]] during the pandemic<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.thekeptgirl.com/2017/07/the-clews-from-raymond-chandlers-war.html|title=The clews from Raymond Chandler's war|website=www.thekeptgirl.com|access-date=November 30, 2018}}</ref> and was undergoing flight training in the fledgling [[Royal Air Force]] (RAF) when the war ended.<ref name = "nyrb-12-06-2007" />

After the [[Armistice of 11 November 1918|armistice]], he returned to Los Angeles by way of Vancouver, and soon began a love affair with Pearl Eugenie ("Cissy") Pascal, a married woman 18 years his senior and the stepmother of Gordon Pascal, with whom Chandler had enlisted.<ref name="nyrb-12-06-2007" /> Cissy amicably divorced her husband, Julian, in 1920, but Chandler's mother disapproved of the relationship and refused to sanction the marriage. For the next four years Chandler supported both his mother and Cissy. After the death of Florence Chandler on September 26, 1923, he was free to marry Cissy. They were married on February 6, 1924.<ref name = "nyrb-12-06-2007" /><ref name = rcinfo>{{Citation |url=http://raymondchandler.info/ | title = Raymond Chandler}}'s Shamus Town Timeline and Residences pages using official government sources (death certificate, census, military & civil – city & phone directories).</ref> Having begun in 1922 as a bookkeeper and auditor, Chandler was by 1931 a highly paid vice president of the [[Dabney Oil Syndicate]], but his alcoholism, absenteeism, promiscuity with female employees, and threatened suicides<ref name = "nyrb-12-06-2007" /> contributed to his dismissal a year later, after ten years with the company.

===As a writer===
In straitened financial circumstances during the [[Great Depression]], Chandler turned to his latent writing talent to earn a living, teaching himself to write [[Pulp magazine|pulp fiction]] by analyzing and imitating a novelette by [[Erle Stanley Gardner]]. Chandler's first professional work, "Blackmailers Don't Shoot", was published in ''Black Mask'' magazine in 1933. According to genre historian Herbert Ruhm, "Chandler, who worked slowly and painstakingly, revising again and again, had taken five months to write the story.  Erle Stanley Gardner could turn out a pulp story in three or four days—and turned out an estimated one thousand."<ref>Herbert Ruhm, "Introduction", in Herbert Ruhm (1977), ed., ''The Hard-boiled Detective:  Stories from "Black Mask" Magazine, 1920–1951'', New York:  Vintage, p. xvii.</ref>

His first novel, ''[[The Big Sleep]]'', was published in 1939, featuring the detective Philip Marlowe, speaking in the first person.  In 1950, Chandler described in a letter to his English publisher, Hamish Hamilton, why he began reading pulp magazines and later wrote for them:

<blockquote>Wandering up and down the Pacific Coast in an automobile I began to read pulp magazines, because they were cheap enough to throw away and because I never had at any time any taste for the kind of thing which is known as women's magazines. This was in the great days of the ''Black Mask'' (if I may call them great days) and it struck me that some of the writing was pretty forceful and honest, even though it had its crude aspect. I decided that this might be a good way to try to learn to write fiction and get paid a small amount of money at the same time.  I spent five months over an 18,000 word novelette and sold it for $180. After that I never looked back, although I had a good many uneasy periods looking forward.{{sfn|Chandler|1969|p=vii}}</blockquote>

His second Marlowe novel, ''[[Farewell, My Lovely]]'' (1940), became the basis for three movie versions adapted by other screenwriters, including the 1944 film ''[[Murder My Sweet]]'', which marked the screen debut of the Marlowe character, played by [[Dick Powell]] (whose depiction of Marlowe was applauded by Chandler). Literary success and film adaptations led to a demand for Chandler himself as a screenwriter. He and [[Billy Wilder]] co-wrote ''[[Double Indemnity]]'' (1944), based on [[James M. Cain]]'s [[Double Indemnity (novel)|novel of the same title]]. The [[film noir|noir]] screenplay was nominated for an [[Academy Award]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.oscars.org/oscars/ceremonies/1945|title=The 17th Academy Awards {{!}} 1945|website=www.oscars.org|date=October 4, 2014 |language=en|access-date=2023-08-26}}</ref> Said Wilder, "I would just guide the structure and I would also do a lot of the dialogue, and he (Chandler) would then comprehend and start constructing too." Wilder acknowledged that the dialogue which makes the film so memorable was largely Chandler's.

Chandler's only produced original screenplay was ''[[The Blue Dahlia]]'' (1946). He had not written a [[denouement]] for the script and, according to producer [[John Houseman]], Chandler concluded he could finish the script only if drunk, with the assistance of round-the-clock secretaries and drivers, which Houseman agreed to. The script gained Chandler's second Academy Award nomination for screenplay.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.oscars.org/oscars/ceremonies/1947|title=The 19th Academy Awards {{!}} 1947|website=www.oscars.org|date=October 4, 2014 |language=en|access-date=2023-08-26}}</ref>

Chandler collaborated on the screenplay of [[Alfred Hitchcock]]'s ''[[Strangers on a Train (film)|Strangers on a Train]]'' (1951), an ironic murder story based on [[Patricia Highsmith]]'s [[Strangers on a Train (novel)|novel]], which he thought implausible. Chandler clashed with Hitchcock and they stopped talking after Hitchcock heard Chandler had referred to him as "that fat bastard".<ref>{{Cite web |last=Gustini |first=Ray |date=2012-01-10 |title=Don't Waste Raymond Chandler's Time; Roald Dahl Achieves Stamp Immortality |url=https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2012/01/dont-waste-raymond-chandlers-time-roald-dahl-achieves-stamp-immortality/333309/ |access-date=2023-08-08 |website=The Atlantic |language=en |quote=There's a famous, possibly apocryphal story of Hitchcock pulling up outside Chandler's house in a limousine and The Big Sleep author saying none-too-softly, "Look at that fat bastard trying to get out of his car!"}}</ref> Hitchcock made a show of throwing Chandler's two draft screenplays into the studio trash can while holding his nose, but Chandler retained the lead screenwriting credit along with Czenzi Ormonde.

In 1946, the Chandlers moved to [[La Jolla]], an affluent coastal neighborhood of San Diego, California, where Chandler wrote two more Philip Marlowe novels, ''[[The Long Goodbye (novel)|The Long Goodbye]]'' and his last completed work, ''Playback''. The latter was derived from an unproduced courtroom drama screenplay he had written for [[Universal Pictures|Universal Studios]].

Four chapters of a novel, unfinished at his death, were transformed into a final Philip Marlowe novel, ''[[Poodle Springs]]'', by the mystery writer and Chandler admirer [[Robert B. Parker]], in 1989. Parker shares the authorship with Chandler. Parker subsequently wrote a sequel to ''The Big Sleep'' entitled ''[[Perchance to Dream (novel)|Perchance to Dream]]'', which was salted with quotes from the original novel. Chandler's final Marlowe short story, circa 1957, was entitled "The Pencil". It later provided the basis of an episode of the HBO miniseries (1983–86), ''[[Philip Marlowe, Private Eye]]'', starring [[Powers Boothe]] as Marlowe.

In 2014, "The Princess and the Pedlar" (1917), a previously unknown comic operetta, with libretto by Chandler and music by Julian Pascal, was discovered<ref>
{{Citation
 | last = Weinman
 | first = Sarah
 | title = Unpublished Raymond Chandler Work Discovered in Library of Congress
 | newspaper = The Guardian
 | location = London
 | date = December 2, 2014
|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/dec/02/raymond-chandler-libretto-library-congress
 }}</ref> among the uncatalogued holdings of the [[Library of Congress]]. The work was never published or produced. It has been dismissed by the Raymond Chandler estate as "no more than… a curiosity."<ref>{{cite web
 | last = Cooper
 | first = Kim
 | title = Goblin Wine
 |url=http://www.goblinwine.com/p/story.html
 | access-date = December 30, 2014 }}</ref> A small team under the direction of the actor and director [[Paul Sand]] is seeking permission to produce the operetta in Los Angeles.

===Later life and death===
Cissy Chandler died in 1954, after a long illness. Heartbroken and drunk, Chandler neglected to inter her cremated remains, and they sat for 57 years in a storage locker in the basement of Cypress View Mausoleum. When he died he was remembered as, "the author of “''The Big Sleep'',” and other mystery novels."<ref>{{Cite web |last=Monteagudo |first=Merrie |date=2019-03-26 |title=60 years ago: Raymond Chandler dies in La Jolla |url=https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/2019/03/26/60-years-ago-raymond-chandler-dies-in-la-jolla/ |access-date=2024-12-06 |website=San Diego Union-Tribune |language=en-US}}</ref>

After Cissy's death, Chandler's loneliness worsened his propensity for [[Major depressive disorder|clinical depression]]; he returned to drinking alcohol, never quitting it for long, and the quality and quantity of his writing suffered.<ref name="nyrb-12-06-2007" /> In 1955, he attempted suicide. In ''The Long Embrace: Raymond Chandler and the Woman He Loved'', Judith Freeman says it was "a cry for help," given that he called the police beforehand, saying he planned to kill himself. Chandler's personal and professional life were both helped and complicated by the women to whom he was attracted, notably Helga Greene (his literary agent), Jean Fracasse (his secretary), [[Sonia Orwell]] ([[George Orwell]]'s widow), and [[Natasha Spender]] ([[Stephen Spender]]'s wife). Chandler regained his U.S. citizenship in 1956, while retaining his British rights.

After a respite in England, he returned to La Jolla. He died at Scripps Memorial Hospital of pneumonial peripheral vascular shock and prerenal uremia (according to the death certificate) in 1959. Helga Greene inherited Chandler's $60,000 estate, after prevailing in a 1960 lawsuit filed by Fracasse contesting Chandler's [[Holographic will|holographic]] [[codicil (will)|codicil]] to his will.

Chandler is buried at [[Mount Hope Cemetery (San Diego)|Mount Hope Cemetery]], in San Diego, California. As Frank MacShane noted in his biography, ''The Life of Raymond Chandler'', Chandler wished to be cremated and placed next to Cissy in Cypress View Mausoleum.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Italie |first=Hillel |date=December 11, 2023 |title=Rare Raymond Chandler poem is a tribute to his late wife, with a surprising twist |url=https://apnews.com/article/raymond-chandler-poem-wife-requiem-9fdefbb098e7e3e59602fb4c0c1c264f |access-date=2024-12-06 |website=AP News |language=en}}</ref> Instead, he was buried in Mount Hope, because he had left no funeral or burial instructions.{{sfn|Hiney|1999|p=275–276}}
[[File:Raymond Chandler gravestone.jpg|thumb|Raymond and Cissy Chandler's tombstone]]
In 2010, Chandler historian Loren Latker, with the assistance of attorney Aissa Wayne (daughter of [[John Wayne]]), brought a petition to disinter Cissy's remains and reinter them with Chandler in Mount Hope. After a hearing in September 2010 in [[California superior courts|San Diego Superior Court]], Judge Richard S. Whitney entered an order granting Latker's request.<ref>Bell, Diane (September 8, 2010).  [http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2010/sep/08/ashes-chandlers-wife-join-him-eternity/ "Ashes of Chandler's wife to join him for eternity"]. SignOnSanDiego.com. Retrieved 2011-11-26.</ref>

On February 14, 2011, Cissy's ashes were conveyed from Cypress View to Mount Hope and interred under a new grave marker above Chandler's, as they had wished.<ref>Bell, Diane (February 14, 2011). [http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2011/feb/14/philip-marlowe-appears-at-raymond-chandler/ "Raymond Chandler and His Wife, Cissy, Are Finally Reunited"]. SignOnSanDiego.com.  Retrieved 2011-11-26.</ref> About 100 people attended the ceremony, which included readings by the Rev. Randal Gardner, [[Powers Boothe]], Judith Freeman and Aissa Wayne. The shared gravestone reads, "Dead men are heavier than broken hearts", a quotation from ''The Big Sleep''. Chandler's original gravestone, placed by Jean Fracasse and her children, is still at the head of his grave; the new one is at the foot.