Cover of seminal hardboiled magazine Black Mask, September 1929, featuring part 1 of its serialization of The Maltese Falcon, by Dashiell Hammett. Illustration of private eye Sam Spade by Henry C. Murphy, Jr.

For the Frank Miller and Geof Darrow comic book, see Hard Boiled (comic). For the film, see Hard Boiled. For the comestible, see boiled eggs.

Hardboiled crime fiction refers to a literary style pioneered by Dashiell Hammett in the late 1920s and refined by Raymond Chandler beginning in the late 1930s. Hardboiled fiction, most commonly associated with detective stories, is distinguished by an unsentimental portrayal of crime, violence, and sex. From its earliest days, hardboiled fiction was published in and closely associated with so-called pulp magazines, most famously Black Mask; later, many hardboiled novels were published by houses specializing in paperback originals, also colloquially known as "pulps." Consequently, "pulp fiction" is often used as a synonym for hardboiled crime fiction. In the United States, the original hardboiled style has been emulated by innumerable writers, notably including Chester Himes, Mickey Spillane, Ross Macdonald, John D. MacDonald, Robert B. Parker, Sara Paretsky, Sue Grafton, and Walter Mosley. For information on Black Mask, the surrealist group, see Black Mask (NYC). ... Actors Bogart, Lorre, Astor and Greenstreet in The Maltese Falcon (1941) The Maltese Falcon (1930) is a detective novel by Dashiell Hammett that has been adapted several times for the cinema. ... Samuel Dashiell Hammett (May 27, 1894 – January 10, 1961) was an American author of hard-boiled detective novels and short stories. ... This article or section is not written in the formal tone expected of an encyclopedia article. ... Poster of the 1941 Warner Brothers film version of The Maltese Falcon, directed by John Huston Sam Spade was the leading character in the novel and movie The Maltese Falcon (1931). ... Frank Miller in an interview about the Batman character. ... Cover art by Geof Darrow Geof (Geoffrey) Darrow (October 21, 1955) is a comic artist and designer born in Iowa, USA. He was a student at Hanna-Barbera cartoon studios after studying at the American Academy of Fine Arts in Chicago. ... A comic book is a magazine or book containing the art form of comics. ... Hard Boiled is Frank Millers loose graphic novel adaptation of Philip K. Dicks Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?; the same source material for Ridley Scotts sci-fi/neo-noir cult favourite Blade Runner. ... Hardboiled crime fiction is a uniquely American style pioneered by Dashiell Hammett, refined by Raymond Chandler, and endlessly imitated since by writers such as Mickey Spillane. ... Boiled eggs are cooked by immersing eggs (typically chickens eggs) in boiling water with their shells unbroken. ... Sherlock Holmes, pipe-puffing hero of crime fiction, confers with his colleague Dr. Watson; together these characters popularized the genre. ... Samuel Dashiell Hammett (May 27, 1894 – January 10, 1961) was an American author of hard-boiled detective novels and short stories. ... Raymond Chandler Raymond Thornton Chandler (July 23, 1888 – March 26, 1959) was an Anglo-American author of crime stories and novels. ... This article or section is not written in the formal tone expected of an encyclopedia article. ... Violence refers to acts of aggression and abuse which causes or intends to cause criminal injury or harm to persons, and (to a lesser extent) animals and property. ... This article is about the issues and phenomena pertaining to human sexual function and behavior. ... Pulp magazines, often called simply the pulps, were inexpensive text fiction magazines widely published in the 1920s through the 1950s. ... For information on Black Mask, the surrealist group, see Black Mask (NYC). ... Chester Bomar Himes (July 29, 1909 – November 12, 1984) was a famous African-American writer. ... Frank Morrison Spillane (March 9, 1918 – July 17, 2006), better known as Mickey Spillane, was an American author of crime novels. ... Ross MacDonald (born January 24, 1965 in Vancouver, British Columbia) is a Canadian sailor. ... John D. MacDonald John Dann MacDonald (July 24, 1916 – December 28, 1986), writing as John D. MacDonald, was an American writer best known for his series of detective novels featuring protagonist Travis McGee. ... Robert B. Parkers novel Cold Service Robert B. Parker (born September 17, 1932) is an acclaimed American writer of detective fiction. ... Sara Paretsky (b. ... Sue Taylor Grafton (born April 24, 1940 in Louisville, Kentucky, USA) is a contemporary American author of detective novels. ... Walter Mosley (born January 12, 1952) is a prominent African-American novelist, most widely recognized for his crime fiction. ...

The name comes from a colloquial phrase of understatement. For an egg, to be hardboiled is to be comparatively tough. The hardboiled detective epitomized by Hammet's Sam Spade and Chandler's Philip Marlowe not only solves mysteries, like his "softer" counterparts, he (and often these days, she) confronts danger and engages in violence on a regular basis. The hardboiled detective also has a characteristically tough attitude—in fact, Spade and Marlowe are two of the primary fictional models for the attitude that has come to be known as "attitude": cool, cocky, flippant. For extensive detail on the identifying marks of the style, see the history of American hardboiled fiction. Poster of the 1941 Warner Brothers film version of The Maltese Falcon, directed by John Huston Sam Spade was the leading character in the novel and movie The Maltese Falcon (1931). ... Ed Bishop had the title role in BBC Radios The Adventures of Philip Marlowe. ... Crime fiction is a typically 20th century genre, dominated by British and American writers. ...

Noir fiction

The Killer Inside Me (1952), one of the definitive noir novels, by Jim Thompson. The guilty party? "All of us."

Noir fiction is the name sometimes given to a mode of crime fiction regarded as a subset of the hardboiled style. According to noir aficionado George Tuttle, "In this sub-genre, the protagonist is usually not a detective, but instead either a victim, a suspect, or a perpetrator. He is someone tied directly to the crime, not an outsider called to solve or fix the situation. Other common characteristics...are the emphasis on sexual relationships and the use of sex to advance the plot and the self-destructive qualities of the lead characters. This type of fiction also has the lean, direct writing style and the gritty realism commonly associated with hardboiled fiction."> The seminal American writer in the noir fiction mode was James M. Cain—regarded as the third major figure of the early hardboiled scene, he debuted as a crime novelist in 1934, right between Hammett and Chandler. Other important U.S. writers in the noir tradition are Cornell Woolrich, Dorothy B. Hughes, Jim Thompson, David Goodis, Charles Williams, and Elmore Leonard. The term "noir fiction" may evoke unrelenting gloom; in fact, while the work of all the major authors in the field might be characterized by a fatalistic attitude, it has been expressed in a variety of tones. Woolrich and Goodis indeed often portray what seems to be a sunless world, but Leonard is frequently bright, even when the color's blood red. Hughes and Williams are somewhere in the middle—her work is serious, yet with a lot of hardboiled "attitude," while his forte is the philosophical smile and shrug. As for Cain and Thompson, each wrote some of the blackest of American genre fiction, and some of the funniest. James Myers Thompson (September 27, 1906, Anadarko, Oklahoma Territory–April 7, 1977, Los Angeles, California) was an American writer of short stories, screenplays and novels, largely of the pulp fiction kind. ... James Mallahan Cain (July 1, 1892 – October 27, 1977) was an American journalist and novelist. ... Cornell George Hopley-Woolrich (December 4, 1903 - September 25, 1968) was an American novelist and short story writer. ... Dorothy Belle Hughes (1904—May 6, 1993) was a U.S. crime writer and critic. ... James Myers Thompson (September 27, 1906, Anadarko, Oklahoma Territory–April 7, 1977, Los Angeles, California) was an American writer of short stories, screenplays and novels, largely of the pulp fiction kind. ... David Goodis (1917–1967) was a popular American noir writer. ... Elmore John Leonard Jr. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article may require cleanup. ...

The popular use of "noir" in the term "noir fiction" derives immediately from "film noir" as it has been used to characterize certain putatively "dark" Hollywood crime dramas and melodramas, many early examples of which were based on works by the original hardboiled writers. In turn, "noir" (French for "black"), first applied to American films in the mid-1940s by observers in France, was used there in similar senses. Most relevantly, the term roman noir (“black novel") was employed to describe a range of books, some that an English speaker might think of as mysteries, others as gothic melodramas. Note that while the meanings of "noir fiction" and roman noir are closely related, the derivation is not direct. Making the connection even tighter, in 1945 the French publisher Gallimard brought out a new series of paperback thrillers, many of them translations of hardboiled American fiction. The line was called Série noire. This still from The Big Combo (1955) demonstrates the visual style of film noir at its most extreme. ... Readers Digest The Série Noire For almost 60 years, the Série Noire has constituted a determining factor in the French thriller market, for a number of reasons: its quantitative importance (thousands of titles had been published, 85% of which translations), its low price, the high prestige of...

Major variants of hardboiled and noir

W. R. Burnett's influential Little Caesar (1929) was turned into one of the first major Hollywood gangster films of the sound era in 1931.

W. R. Burnett, part of the first wave of hardboiled writers along with Hammett and Cain, wrote in a style that split the difference, often featuring heroic gangsters as his leads. The five novels featuring dipso detective Bill Crane written by Jonathan Latimer over the course of the 1930s constitute the first literary series of hardboiled screwball comedy. The work of Charles Willeford has sometimes been referred to as hardboiled or, particularly, noir fiction, though it is perhaps more helpfully characterized as "neo-noir," as Willeford's crime writing rarely employs the conventions of hardboiled literature without critiquing them. Of latter-day hardboiled novelists who regularly feature detective protagonists, the most prominent to write in an unmistakably noir mode is James Ellroy. In terms of character, plot, and worldview, Patricia Highsmith would seem to be a quintessential writer of noir fiction—indeed, her work has been the source for numerous movies, both American and European, regarded as film noirs—but her style sets her apart: far from "lean" and "direct," it is characteristically dense and subtle. William Ripley Burnett (November 25, 1899 - April 25, 1982), often credited as W.R. Burnett, is a novelist and screenwriter. ... Little Caesar is a 1931 crime film made during the Pre-Code era which tells the story of a man who works his way up the ranks of the mob until he reaches its upper heights. ... William Ripley Burnett (November 25, 1899 - April 25, 1982), often credited as W.R. Burnett, is a novelist and screenwriter. ... Jonathan Wyatt Latimer (October 23, 1906—June 23, 1983) was an American crime writer. ... The screwball comedy has proven to be one of the most elusive of the film genres. ... Charles Willeford Charles Willeford was born 2 January 1919 in Little Rock, Arkansas. ... This still from The Big Combo (1955) demonstrates the visual style of film noir at its most extreme. ... Photo of James Ellroy by Robert Birnbaum James Ellroy (born Lee Earle Ellroy on March 4, 1948 in Los Angeles, California) is an American writer. ... Patricia Highsmith (January 19, 1921 - February 4, 1995) was an American novelist who is known mainly for her psychological crime thrillers. ...

See also

• Black Lizard
• Gold Medal Books
• Hard Case Crime

Black Lizard was a publisher during the 1980s. ... In addition to their lines of magazines and comic books, Fawcett Publications was also an independent newsstand distributor, and in 1949 the company negotiated a contract with New American Library to distribute their Mentor and Signet titles. ... The Colorado Kid Cover art by Glen Orbik Hard Case Crime is an American publisher of paperback hardboiled crime novels founded in 2004 by Charles Ardai and Max Phillips. ...

External links

• "1920-1945: The Interwar Period and the Development of Hard-Boiled Crime Fiction" excerpt from Lee Horsley's The Noir Thriller (2001)
• "American Hard-Boiled Crime Fiction, 1920s-1940s" essay on the form's early history by Lee Horsley; part of the Crimeculture website
• Continental Detective Agency breezy, well-written site on hardboiled pioneer Dashiell Hammett
• "Fatal Women in the Hard-Boiled Fifties" excerpt from Lee Horsley's The Noir Thriller (2001)
• Hardboiled Bibliographies comprehensive bibliographies of many important hardboiled/noir authors; part of the RARA-AVIS website
• "Hard-Boiled Detective Fiction" major history of the genre by Prof. William Marling, Case Western Reserve University
• The Hardboiled Era: A Checklist, 1929-1958 chronology of significant novels, compiled by critic Geoffrey O'Brien for the 1981 edition of his Hardboiled America
• "Hard-Boiled Investigators" excerpt from Lee Horsley's The Noir Thriller (2001)
• "The Hard-Boiled Way" article by Gary Lovisi; originally published in A Shot in the Dark, March 1995
• "James M. Cain"/The Art of Fiction, No. 69 long interview with the author; originally published in The Paris Review, Spring–Summer 1978
• Mystery Time Line: Hard-Boiled Mysteries brief survey of the genre's early days, focusing on Black Mask; part of the MysteryNet website
• NoirBlog news on noir and neo-noir in film, literature, and graphic novels
• Noir Originals Zine online magazine, with links to dozens of interviews and articles; part of Allan Guthrie's Noir Originals website
• "Rage in Harlem: Black Protest in the Mid-Century American Crime Novel" excerpt from Lee Horsley's The Noir Thriller (2001)
• The Raymond Chandler Web Site well-sourced site on the seminal hardboiled author; administered by Robert F. Moss
• The Thrilling Detective Web Site major genre site, including many recent stories and novelettes; administered by Kevin Burton Smith
• Toward a Hardboiled Genealogy hardboiled/noir family tree, by crime fiction author and scholar Megan Abbott
• Twists, Slugs and Roscoes: A Glossary of Hardboiled Slang comprehensive lexicon of genre lingo; part of the RARA-AVIS website
• "What Is Noir?" essay on the history of books in the style, including a detailed chronology, by George Tuttle

Hardboiled and noir fiction online

• "The Case of the Four and Twenty Blackbirds" hardboiled pastiche by Neil Gaiman
• Charles Willeford Excerpts excerpts from many of the author's books; part of the Dennis McMillan Publications website
• Hard Case Crime—Our Books links to chapter-length excerpts from the publisher's line of classic and contemporary crime fiction
• New Noir and Harboiled Fiction Writers links (plus summaries) to extracts from many recent works in the field; part of Allan Guthrie's Noir Originals website
• "Nightmare Town" the classic story by Dashiell Hammett
• The Shark-Infested Custard excerpt from the novel by Charles Willeford: chapter 1 and part of chapter 2; part of the Random House website