The Maltese Falcon (novel) The Maltese Falcon (novel) The Maltese Falcon is a 1930 detective novel by American writer Dashiell Hammett, originally serialized in the magazine "Black Mask" beginning with the September 1929 issue. The story is told entirely in external third-person narrative; there is no description whatever of any character's internal thoughts or feelings, only what they say and do, and how they look. The novel has been adapted several times for the cinema. The main character, Sam Spade (who also appeared later in some lesser-known short stories), was a departure from Hammett's nameless detective, The Continental Op. Spade combined several features of
Maltese literature published in 1842, followed by "Ħrejjef bil-Malti" "(Legends in Maltese)" and "Ħrejjef u Ċajt bil-Malti" "(Legends and Jokes in Maltese)" in 1861 and 1863 respectively. The same author published the first history book in the Maltese language entitled "Storja ta’ Malta Miktuba għall-Poplu" "(The People's History of Malta)" in 1862. 1863 saw the publication of the first novel in Maltese, "Elvira Jew Imħabba ta’ Tirann" "(Elvira, or the Love of a Tyrant)" by the Neapolitan author, Giuseppe Folliero de Luna. Anton Manwel Caruana's novel "Ineż Farruġ" (1889), the first Maltese novel, was modelled on traditional Italian historical novels, such as