|
Nightmare Town (short Story)
"Nightmare Town" is a short story written by Dashiell Hammett in 1924. It was first published in a December issue of ''Argosy All-Story Weekly'' magazine. It became the title story of a 1948 collection of four Hammett short stories published in paperback with illustrations. It appeared again in 1999, the eponymous story of a collection of twenty short stories edited by Kirby McCauley, Martin H Greenberg and Ed Gorman. It was adapted for BBC radio in June 2010 and read by Stuart Milligan. Significance "Nightmare Town" begins as an adventure story, and Threefall is typical of the rough, manly hero often to be found in the genre. However, the setting is no adventure story environment, but according to Panek, a modern-day Sodom and Gomorrah, "Izzard is the city in the desert whose iniquity leads to its own destruction." (Panek, 2004) It is the Prohibition Era, and violence and criminality are the foundations on which the town was built. Hammett had hit upon a theme which he would de ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dashiell Hammett
Samuel Dashiell Hammett (; May 27, 1894 – January 10, 1961) was an American writer of hard-boiled detective novels and short stories. He was also a screenwriter and political activist. Among the enduring characters he created are Sam Spade ('' The Maltese Falcon''), Nick and Nora Charles (''The Thin Man''), the Continental Op (''Red Harvest'' and '' The Dain Curse'') and the comic strip character Secret Agent X-9. Hammett "is now widely regarded as one of the finest mystery writers of all time". In his obituary in ''The New York Times'', he was described as "the dean of the... 'hard-boiled' school of detective fiction." ''Time'' included Hammett's 1929 novel ''Red Harvest'' on its list of the 100 best English-language novels published between 1923 and 2005. In 1990, the Crime Writers' Association picked three of his five novels for their list of '' The Top 100 Crime Novels of All Time''. Five years later, four out of five of his novels made ''The Top 100 Mystery Novels of A ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Argosy All-Story Weekly
''Argosy'', later titled ''The Argosy'', ''Argosy All-Story Weekly'' and ''The New Golden Argosy'', was an American pulp magazine from 1882 through 1978, published by Frank Munsey until its sale to Popular Publications in 1942. It is the first American pulp magazine. The magazine began as a children's weekly story–paper entitled ''The Golden Argosy''. In the era before the Second World War, ''Argosy'' was regarded as one of the "Big Four" pulp magazines (along with '' Blue Book'', '' Adventure'' and '' Short Stories''), the most prestigious publications in the pulp market, that many pulp magazine writers aspired to publish in. Lee Server, ''Danger Is My Business: an illustrated history of the Fabulous Pulp Magazines''. San Francisco: Chronicle Books. (1993) (pp. 22-6, 50) John Clute, discussing the American pulp magazines in the first two decades of the twentieth century, has described ''The Argosy'' and its companion ''The All-Story'' as "the most important pulps of their er ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sodom And Gomorrah
Sodom and Gomorrah () were two legendary biblical cities destroyed by God for their wickedness. Their story parallels the Genesis flood narrative in its theme of God's anger provoked by man's sin (see Genesis 19:1–28). They are mentioned frequently in the prophets and the New Testament as symbols of human wickedness and divine retribution, and the Quran also contains a version of the story about the two cities. The legend of their destruction may have originated as an attempt to explain the remains of third-millennium Bronze Age cities in the region, and subsequent Late Bronze Age collapse. Etymology The etymology of the names ''Sodom'' and ''Gomorrah'' is uncertain, and scholars disagree about them. They are known in Hebrew as hbo, , Səḏōm, label=none and hbo, , 'Ămōrā, label=none. In the Septuagint, these became grc, Σόδομα, Sódoma, label=none and grc, Γόμορρᾰ, Gómorrha, label=none; the Hebrew ghayn was absorbed by ayin sometime after the Septua ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Prohibition In The United States
In the United States from 1920 to 1933, a nationwide constitutional law prohibited the production, importation, transportation, and sale of alcoholic beverages. The alcohol industry was curtailed by a succession of state legislatures, and finally ended nationwide under the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, ratified on January 16, 1919. Prohibition ended with the ratification of the Twenty-first Amendment, which repealed the Eighteenth Amendment on December 5, 1933. Led by pietistic Protestants, prohibitionists first attempted to end the trade in alcoholic drinks during the 19th century. They aimed to heal what they saw as an ill society beset by alcohol-related problems such as alcoholism, family violence, and saloon-based political corruption. Many communities introduced alcohol bans in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and enforcement of these new prohibition laws became a topic of debate. Prohibition supporters, called "drys", presented ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Red Harvest
''Red Harvest'' (1929) is a novel by Dashiell Hammett. The story is narrated by the Continental Op, a frequent character in Hammett's fiction, much of which is drawn from his own experiences as an operative of the Pinkerton Detective Agency (fictionalized as the Continental Detective Agency). The plot follows the Op's investigation of several murders amid a labor dispute in a corrupt Montana mining town. Some of the novel was inspired by the Anaconda Road massacre, a 1920 labor dispute in the mining town of Butte, Montana. ''Time'' included ''Red Harvest'' in its 100 Best English-Language Novels from 1923 to 2005, noting that, in the Continental Op, Hammett "created the prototype for every sleuth who would ever be called 'hard-boiled.'" The Nobel Prize-winning author André Gide called the book "a remarkable achievement, the last word in atrocity, cynicism, and horror." Plot The Continental Op is called to Personville (known as "Poisonville" to the locals) by the newspaper ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arthur Conan Doyle
Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle (22 May 1859 – 7 July 1930) was a British writer and physician. He created the character Sherlock Holmes in 1887 for '' A Study in Scarlet'', the first of four novels and fifty-six short stories about Holmes and Dr. Watson. The Sherlock Holmes stories are milestones in the field of crime fiction. Doyle was a prolific writer; other than Holmes stories, his works include fantasy and science fiction stories about Professor Challenger and humorous stories about the Napoleonic soldier Brigadier Gerard, as well as plays, romances, poetry, non-fiction, and historical novels. One of Doyle's early short stories, "J. Habakuk Jephson's Statement" (1884), helped to popularise the mystery of the '' Mary Celeste''. Name Doyle is often referred to as "Sir Arthur Conan Doyle" or "Conan Doyle", implying that "Conan" is part of a compound surname rather than a middle name. His baptism entry in the register of St Mary's Cathedral, Edinburgh, gives " ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dorothy L
Dorothy may refer to: * Dorothy (given name), a list of people with that name. Arts and entertainment Characters *Dorothy Gale Dorothy Gale is a fictional character created by American author L. Frank Baum as the protagonist in many of his ''Oz'' novels. She first appears in Baum's classic 1900 children's novel '' The Wonderful Wizard of Oz'' and reappears in most of it ..., protagonist of ''The Wonderful Wizard of Oz'' by L. Frank Baum * Ace (''Doctor Who'') or Dorothy, a character played by Sophie Aldred in ''Doctor Who'' *Dorothy, a goldfish on ''Sesame Street'' owned by Elmo *Dorothy the Dinosaur, a costumed green dinosaur who appears with '' The Wiggles'' * Dorothy (''MÄR''), a main character in ''MÄR'' *Dorothy Baxter, a main character on ''Hazel'' *Dorothy "Dottie" Turner, main character of '' Servant'' *Dorothy Michaels, Dustin Hoffman's character the movie '' Tootsie'' Film and television * ''Dorothy'' (TV series), 1979 American TV series * Dorothy Mills, a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Agatha Christie
Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie, Lady Mallowan, (; 15 September 1890 – 12 January 1976) was an English writer known for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections, particularly those revolving around fictional detectives Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple. She also wrote the world's longest-running play, the murder mystery ''The Mousetrap'', which has been performed in the West End theatre, West End since 1952. A writer during the "Golden Age of Detective Fiction", Christie has been called the "Queen of Crime". She also wrote six novels under the pseudonym Mary Westmacott. In 1971, she was made a Dame (DBE) by Queen Elizabeth II for her contributions to literature. ''Guinness World Records'' lists Christie as the best-selling fiction writer of all time, her novels having sold more than two billion copies. Christie was born into a wealthy upper middle class family in Torquay, Devon, and was largely home-schooled. She was initially an unsuccessful w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Simple Art Of Murder
''The Simple Art of Murder'' is the title of several quasi-connected publications by hard-boiled detective fiction author Raymond Chandler: *The first, and arguably best-known, is a critical essay on detective fiction, originally published in '' The Atlantic Monthly'' in December 1944. A revised, expanded version was included in Howard Haycraft's 1946 anthology ''The Art of the Mystery Story''. *The second is a separate, shorter essay, mostly describing Chandler's personal experiences writing for pulp magazines, originally published in '' Saturday Review of Literature'', April 15, 1950. *The third is a short story collection, also originally published in 1950 (by Houghton Mifflin Co.), which contains eight of Chandler's stories pre-dating his first novel '' The Big Sleep'', that he wanted remembered. **While first editions of this collection feature an abridgement of the ''Saturday'' essay as an introduction and the ''Atlantic'' essay as an afterword, later editions tend to f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Raymond Chandler
Raymond Thornton Chandler (July 23, 1888 – March 26, 1959) was an American-British novelist and screenwriter. In 1932, at the age of forty-four, Chandler became a detective fiction writer after losing his job as an oil company executive during the Great Depression. His first short story, " Blackmailers Don't Shoot", was published in 1933 in '' Black Mask,'' a popular pulp magazine. His first novel, '' The Big Sleep'', was published in 1939. In addition to his short stories, Chandler published seven novels during his lifetime (an eighth, in progress at the time of his death, was completed by Robert B. Parker). All but ''Playback'' have been made into motion pictures, some more than once. In the year before his death, he was elected president of the Mystery Writers of America. Chandler had an immense stylistic influence on American popular literature. He is a founder of the hardboiled school of detective fiction, along with Dashiell Hammett, James M. Cain and other ''Black ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
American Short Stories
American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, people who self-identify their ancestry as "American" ** American English, the set of varieties of the English language native to the United States ** Native Americans in the United States, indigenous peoples of the United States * American, something of, from, or related to the Americas, also known as "America" ** Indigenous peoples of the Americas * American (word), for analysis and history of the meanings in various contexts Organizations * American Airlines, U.S.-based airline headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas * American Athletic Conference, an American college athletic conference * American Recordings (record label), a record label previously known as Def American * American University, in Washington, D.C. Sports teams Soccer * ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1924 Short Stories
Nineteen or 19 may refer to: * 19 (number), the natural number following 18 and preceding 20 * one of the years 19 BC, AD 19, 1919, 2019 Films * ''19'' (film), a 2001 Japanese film * ''Nineteen'' (film), a 1987 science fiction film Music * 19 (band), a Japanese pop music duo Albums * ''19'' (Adele album), 2008 * ''19'', a 2003 album by Alsou * ''19'', a 2006 album by Evan Yo * ''19'', a 2018 album by MHD * ''19'', one half of the double album '' 63/19'' by Kool A.D. * '' Number Nineteen'', a 1971 album by American jazz pianist Mal Waldron * ''XIX'' (EP), a 2019 EP by 1the9 Songs * "19" (song), a 1985 song by British musician Paul Hardcastle. * "Nineteen", a song by Bad4Good from the 1992 album ''Refugee'' * "Nineteen", a song by Karma to Burn from the 2001 album ''Almost Heathen''. * "Nineteen" (song), a 2007 song by American singer Billy Ray Cyrus. * "Nineteen", a song by Tegan and Sara from the 2007 album '' The Con''. * "XIX" (song), a 2014 song by S ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
