The Big Sleep The Big Sleep The Big Sleep (1939) is a hardboiled crime novel by Raymond Chandler, the first to feature the detective Philip Marlowe. It has been adapted for film twice, in 1946 and again in 1978. The story is set in Los Angeles. The story is noted for its complexity, with characters double-crossing one another and secrets being exposed throughout the narrative. The title is a euphemism for death; it refers to a rumination about "sleeping the big sleep" in the final pages of the book. In 1999, the book was voted 96th of "Le Monde"s "100 Books of the
Big Little Book series to Perdition" (2002) showed a boy reading "The Lone Ranger" Big Little Book, but this was an anachronism since the movie is set during 1931, a year prior to the first Big Little Books and two years before "The Lone Ranger" premiered January 31, 1933 on radio. More than 1,300 Big Little Books and the many publishers are mentioned in Arnold T. Blumberg's "The Big Big Little Book Book" (Gemstone, 2004). From 1939 the British Woolworths Group sold "Mighty Midgets", 32-page books that measured 3¾ inches by 2½ inches (10 x 7 cm) and were sold at the artificially low