Letters of Raymond Chandler

From January 1955, a letter Raymond Chandler wrote about the death of his wife Cissy in December:

"...many times during the past two years in the middle of the night I had realized that it was only a question of time before I lost her. But that is not the same thing as having it happen. Saying goodbye to your loved one in your mind is not the same thing as closing her eyes and knowing they will never open again. But I was glad that she died. To think of that proud, fearless bird caged in a room in some rotten sanatorium for the rest of her days was such an unbearable thought that I could hardly face it at all...I am sleeping in her room. I thought I couldn't face that, and then I thought that if the room were empty it would be haunted, and every time I went past the door I would have the horrors, and the only thing for me was to come in here and fill it up with my junk and make it look the kind of mess I'm used to living in...For thirty years, ten months and two days, she was the light of my life, my whole ambition. Anything else I did was just the fire for her to warm her hands at. That is all there is to say."

A month later, Chandler tried to shoot himself. He lived for five more years in states of drunkenness, anxiety and despair. When he died, only 17 people attended his funeral. The Raymond Chandler Papers, edited by Tom Hiney and Frank MacShane, highlights the best of Chandler's letters and nonfiction, including valuable advice to writers.