Estate / Collection: The Jean Vounder-Davis Collection of Raymond Chandler

CHANDLER, RAYMOND

Autograph letter signed, written in French. In this long letter, Chandler responds to a critical essay about him by Robert Champigny published in "Critique, No. 127: Revue générale des publications Françaises et étrangères" (Paris: Editions de Minuit, December 1957), titled "Raymond Chandler et Le Roman Policier [the Detective Novel]." Champigny's article, extracted from the journal, is present. Chandler's response is written in ink, addressed to "Cher Monsieur Champigny," signed in full "Raymond Chandler" at the end, and is five pages on 8 1/2 x 5 1/2 inch (21 x 14 cm) sheets. The first leaf of the letter is toned, some creasing and wear to the original article.

A long autograph letter from Chandler to a French critic. The letter touches on some of the same themes he broached in his famous essay about the detective genre, The Simple Art of Murder (The Atlantic, December 1944), and also includes a staunch defense of his novel, The Long Goodbye. The letter is written entirely in French and is a good example of the author's fluency in the language.

Chandler responds to an article by Robert Champigny, who argues that the American genre of hardboiled detective fiction is in a state of decline. After an overwhelmingly positive review of Chandler's past oeuvre and style, discussed in comparison with the "classic" English style of detective fiction, Champigny offers a blunt critique of Chandler's The Long Goodbye, calling it "an error... marking the dissolution of the genre." The critic argues that this is because the book's plot lacks unity, and Chandler abandons certain aesthetic conventions of the genre in favor of an increased focus on his characters' psychologies. Chandler begins his response to this critique with an expression of gratitude at what Champigny has written, and he explains that Hamish Hamilton, his publisher, had given him the article. He makes an apology, rather unnecessarily, for his written French, before launching into his rebuttal. Chandler humbly states that "after thirty-five years of making an effort to write a book that seems to me to be almost good... I am still a student... [and] at a hundred years (very possibly) I will still be a student who distrusts himself." Chandler then criticizes the conventions of English Golden Age detective fiction, especially Agatha Christie's way of unfairly misleading her readers about the murderer - "a character who is at first presented in a false mask" - only to suddenly reveal them at the end of the story. He writes, "Me, I view this method as ridiculous." Finally, he defends his book against Champigny's critique - "it seems to me a bit strange. Almost everyone is of the idea that this book is the best I've written." Nonetheless, Chandler agrees with Champigny's diagnosis of the poor state of hardboiled fiction - "I don't contest your opinion that the American-style detective novel is almost dead. The writers seem to me to be always more and more mechanical."