The Little Sister

Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1949. First American edition, published three months after the British, of the fifth title in the Philip Marlowe detective series, signed by Raymond Chandler. The Little Sister follows the private eye to Hollywood, where Marlowe investigates a scandal involving a starlet, her gangster beau, and her missing brother. Chandler's disdain for the film business, informed by his own experiences as a screenwriter, is evident: "Real cities have something else, some individual bony structure under the muck. Los Angeles has Hollywood -- and hates it. It ought to consider itself damn lucky. Without Hollywood it would be a mail order city. Everything in the catalogue you could get better somewhere else." The Little Sister inspired the 1969 semi-noir film Marlowe, starring James Garner, who would go on to portray the equally sardonic detective Jim Rockford in the 1970s NBC television series The Rockford Files. Bruccoli A8.2.a. A scarce signed copy, in the original dust jacket designed by Boris Artzybasheff. Single volume, measuring 8 x 5.5 inches: [6], 249, [1]. Original orange-red cloth stamped in blue, original unclipped color pictorial dust jacket. Signed "Raymond Chandler" in ink on front free endpaper. Bookseller ticket to rear free endpaper. Light rubbing to dust jacket, spine panel with slight loss at ends and two short clean tears, one repaired.