Sought-after unsigned book: The Big Sleep. First edition. NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 1939. Hardcover with facsimile dust jacket, 5.25 x 7.75, 277 pages. Book condition: VG- in a fine modern facsimile dust jacket, with moderate soiling to spine and boards, edgewear, rubbing to topstain, bookplate affixed to first free end page, and front pastedown bearing an ownership stamp; the binding is tight. Chandler's first book to feature detective Philip Marlowe, The Big Sleep was recognized as one of Le Monde's '100 Books of the Century' in 1999 and listed on Time Magazine's list of the '100 Best Novels' in 2005. It was famously adapted for the screen by Warner Bros. in 1946, in an iconic film starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall.
