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
The Big Sleep the case now over, Marlowe goes to a local bar and orders several double Scotches. While drinking, he begins to think about Mona "Silver-Wig" Mars. He never sees her again. "The Big Sleep", like most of Chandler's novels, was written by what he called "cannibalizing" his short stories. Chandler would take stories he had already published in the pulp magazine "Black Mask" and rework them into a coherent novel. For "The Big Sleep", the two main stories that form the core of the novel are "Killer in the Rain" (published in 1935) and "The Curtain" (published in 1936). Although the