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
characters: Vivian Regan, Mona Mars, Owen Taylor, Bernie Ohls, Harry Jones, Agnes Lozelle, Eddie Mars, Philip Marlowe, Joe Brody, General Guy Sternwood, Carmen Sternwood, Arthur Gwynn Geiger, Lash Camino, Carol Lundgren, Rusty Regan
genres: Fiction, American, Mystery, Thriller, Noir, Detective, Mystery Thriller, Classics, Novels, Crime
ratings_count: 151450
places: Los Angeles area, California, Hollywood, 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: New Millennium Audio