She came over near me and smiled with her mouth and she had little sharp predatory teeth, as white as orange pith and shiny as porcelain. They glistened between her thin too taut lips. Her face lacked color and didn’t look too healthy.

“Tall, aren’t you?” she said.

“I didn’t mean to be.” (said Marlow)

Her eyes rounded. She was puzzled. She was thinking. I could see, even on that short acquaintance, that thinking was always going to be a bother to her.

The above excerpt is from Raymond Chandler’s first Philip Marlowe novel: “The Big Sleep”, published in 1939. Marlowe is a hard, introspective private eye dreamed into existence from Chandler’s cynical but playful mind, creating the quintessential detective and crime novel of the 20th century.  “The Big Sleep” has been ranked as one of the best 20th century novels by The Guardian, Time Magazine, Le Mond, and at least 20 other current best book lists.

The 1946 movie adaptation of the book starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall with the screenplay by William Faulkner achieved a Metascore of 86 and a user score of 8.0. The Telegraph, critiquing the movie, in 2004 stated that “The Big Sleep is the best scripted, best directed, best acted, and least comprehensible film noir ever made.”

Chandler was 44 years old, an out of work alcoholic, before he wrote his first piece, a short story, “Blackmailers Don’t Shoot”.  “Blackmailers” was the warm-up private eye mystery that would evolve, over the course of the next six years, into his first Philip Marlowe novel: “The Big Sleep”.

Source. Chandler: Stories and Early Novels published by Library of America, 1995. The 100 Greatest Literary Characters by Plath et al published by Rowman and Littlefield, 2019. Graphics: Warner Bros’ 1946. “The Big Sleep” and book cover.