num_pages: 231
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
titlecomplete: The Big Sleep (Philip Marlowe, #1)
characters: Philip Marlowe, Harry Jones, Eddie Mars, Joe Brody, Mona Mars, Owen Taylor, Vivian Regan, Lash Camino, Rusty Regan, Arthur Gwynn Geiger, Carol Lundgren, Carmen Sternwood, General Guy Sternwood, Bernie Ohls, Agnes Lozelle
genres: American, Detective, Thriller, Novels, Crime, Noir, Classics, Mystery, Mystery Thriller, Fiction
ratings_count: 151425
places: Hollywood, California, Los Angeles, California, Los Angeles area, 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: Vintage Crime