description: Down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid....He is the hero; he is everything. He must be a complete man and a common man and yet an unusual man.This is the Code of the Private Eye as defined by Raymond Chandler in his 1944 essay The Simple Act of Murder. Such a man was Philip Marlowe, private eye, an educated, heroic, streetwise, rugged individualist and the hero of Chandler's first novel, The Big Sleep. This work established Chandler as the master of the 'hard-boiled' detective novel, and his articulate and literary style of writing won him a large audience, which ranged from the man in the street to the most sophisticated intellectual.
language: English
title: The Big Sleep: A Film Adaptation Directed by Howard Hawks
titlecomplete: The Big Sleep: A Film Adaptation Directed by Howard Hawks
characters: Philip Marlowe, Eddie Mars, Vivian Regan, Owen Taylor, Bernie Ohls, Lash Camino, Mona Mars, Rusty Regan, Carol Lundgren, General Guy Sternwood, Joe Brody, Arthur Gwynn Geiger, Agnes Lozelle, Carmen Sternwood, Harry Jones
genres: Classics, American, Noir, Mystery, Novels, Detective, Thriller, Fiction, Mystery Thriller, Crime
ratings_count: 151435
places: Hollywood, California, Los Angeles area, California, Los Angeles, California
series: Philip Marlowe
awards: awardedAt: 946713600000
name: Anthony Award
category: Best Novel of the Century, awardedAt: 1357027200000
name: CWA Best Ever
category: Crime Novel
publisher: Irvington Publishers