Hammett's Life

Dashiell Hammett was born  5/27/1894 in St. Mary’s County, Maryland. Hammett grew up on his family’s Tobacco farm with his father, Richard, and his Mother, Annie. Hammett’s father was a frequent drinker and took out his aggression and abuse on Hammett’s mother. In his adult years, Hammett met his first spouse, Josephine Annis Dolan, a nurse in a hospital that Hammett was being treated in. Dolan was pregnant with their firstborn in 1921. Hammett and Dolan married in that same year. Their first daughter was named Mary Jane. Their second daughter, born 1925, was named after Josephine. Dashiell Hammett had contracted life changing diseases such as tuberculosis and hepatitis which proved to be a burden to him and his family as he was said to be a risk to his daughters because of his poor condition. This eventually led to Dolan and Hammett’s falling out. The turmoil between them was brought to an end with their divorce in 1937, which took place in Mexico. Hammett’s list of love interests did not halt with Josephine as he began to fall in love with his second longform partner, Lillian Hellman. Hellman was a prominent and confident American playwright. Hammett and Hellman’s relationship was strong as they stayed together mostly for 30 years, until Hammett passed away. Hammett died in Lenox Hill Hospital, New York City. Hellman dealt with Hammett’s possessions and their appropriate heir.

Dashiell Hammett dropped from his schooling at the young age of 13 straight into low wage paying jobs trying his best to be a working man even without actually being a ‘man’ yet. His first job was as a messenger boy. Then he started working as an office clerk, and then he worked as a stockbroker. Even later, he jumped to the jobs of a timekeeper, stevedore, and even an advertising manager for Samuels Jewelers, but one of his most defining career paths was his time spent as a detective for Pinkerton Agency in which he stayed for 8 years. His time as a detective helped him learn much about the world of sleuthing and its troubles which would define his literature that he is so well known for. After his journey through detective work came to an end, he enrolled in the Army for WWI. This endeavor had its fair share of hardships until Hammett spent his time in army hospitals. Dashiell Hammett’s writing experience began when he started writing in pulp magazines with his vast variety of short stories. Around 1930 is when Hammett became an avid writer. Once again, Hammett enrolled back into the Army for WWII which resulted in more disease and pain than he was enduring when he enrolled. After he was unfit to keep going, he began to heavily advocate for the civil rights movements at the time which resulted in his jailing for six months after being non compliant with information.

Dashiell Hammett is best known for his original twist on detective literature as he pioneered the hard-boiled detective genre. This creativity shown in his stylistic writing was shaped by his 8 years of detective work. His writing is heavily influenced by his very own experiences as a detective, from parallels of people in his life to everyday objectives and dialogue. His first official published books are the Red Harvest and The Dain Curse, both readily available in 1929. These novels brought Hammett into the eyes of many readers for the first time and wrapped him into writing professionally. What is widely considered to be Hammett’s greatest work is the Maltese Falcon published in 1930. This story captivated many with its engaging plot and intriguing protagonist, Sam Spade. It is interesting to note, on the topic of Sam Spade, that Dashiell Hammett changed his name from Samuel Dashiell Hammett to just Dashiell Hammett. Hammett continued writing with more notable releases such as The Glass Key in 1931 and The Thin Man in 1934. Hammett’s writing was sufficient and captivating with almost no experience before his first published novels. The only credible sources of experience would be from his work in pulp magazine. Other than the magazine, he had no experience writing sophisticated novels at the level of his first two books.