Chandler, Raymond Thornton (1888-1959)

US novelist. He turned the pulp detective mystery form into a successful genre of literature and created the quintessential private eye in the tough but chivalric loner, Philip Marlowe. Marlowe is the narrator of such books as The Big Sleep (1939; filmed 1946), Farewell My Lovely (1940; filmed 1944), The Lady in the Lake (1943; filmed 1947), and The Long Goodbye (1954; filmed 1975). He also wrote numerous screenplays, notably Double Indemnity (1944), Blue Dahlia (1946), and Strangers on a Train (1951).