Alcoholic Authors: Raymond Chandler
A Life of Excessive Drinking and Personal Disasters
Sep 12, 2008
Raymond Chandler set the standard for the fictional hard-boiled, heavy drinking, woman chasing, private detective with the Philip Marlow novels that influences mystery writers to this day. In some ways, it was art imitating Chandler's life of liquor and women.
Raymond Chandler Early Life
Raymond Chandler was born to an Irish Quaker family in Chicago, Illinois on July 23, 1888. His parents were Maurice Chandler, a railroad man, and Florence Chandler. His father, an alcoholic, would often desert the family for extended absences and eventually disappeared altogether. After divorcing her husband, his mother and Chandler moved to England where they lived with his grandmother and an aunt.
Raymond Chandler received a classical British education. He won awards for mathematics and general achievement and at the age of 17, studied foreign languages in France and Germany. When he returned to England, he became a naturalized citizen so he could take the British civil service examination. He worked as a government clerk but left that position to work as a journalist and freelance essayists. Returning to the America in 1912 and worked at a variety of jobs.
Raymond Chandler Alcoholism
Raymond is said to have taken his first drink as a soldier in World War I after he enlisted in the Canadian army in 1917. He had a variety of jobs and has an erratic employment history which was caused by his drinking problems. By 1924, Chandler had married Pearl Cecily “Cissy” Hulbert however over the next seven years his drinking problem began to manifest itself in extended episodes of heavy drinking and erratic behavior. It was the reason he was fired from his job as a vice president of an oil syndicate in 1932 after which he temporarily stopped his excessive drinking.
Raymond Chandler Marriage
Raymond Chandler had correspondence between himself and Cissy destroyed. He was mesmerized by Cissy who was an artist’s model and breathtaking beauty. Chandler thought she was eight years older than him when he married her in 1924, however she was actually eighteen years his senior. Although Chandler is to have had affairs, he remained devoted to her.
Raymond Chandler Writing Career
Raymond Chandler began writing for the “pulps’, cheaply produced magazines with mystery, romance and adventure fiction, at age 44 and his first story, “Blackmailers Don’t Shoot” was published Black Mask in 1933. He published 10 more stories in Black Mask from 1934 to 1937 however he was not prolific enough to sustain a decent standard of living. In 1938, he began working on a novel, incorporating material from two previously published short stories.
Raymond Chandler’s creation of hard drinking and smart Philip Marlow character in his first novel would begin a writing career that has resonated into the twenty-first century. Much of Chandler---the penchant for excessive drinking and his attraction to women, were distilled into Marlowe. However, although his writing brought him success with seven novels, 17 short stories and screenplays such as Double Indemnity brought him success, his personal life remained a series of disasters because of his alcoholism.
Raymond Chandler died of pneumonia on March 26, 1959 at Scripps Clinic in California after years of numerous hospitalizations because of the health problems from his heavy drinking. His work continues to influence writers of American fiction especially those with the characterization of literary private detectives.
Bibliography:
Robert F. Moss, Editor. Raymond Chandler: A Literary Reference. NY: Da Capo Press, 200d.
Tom Hiney and Frank MacShane, Editors. Raymond Chandler Papers: Selected Letters and Nonfiction 1909-1959. NY: Grove Press, 2002
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