Beschreibung:

HAMMETT, DASHIELL. Two autograph letters signed ("SDH" in pencil) and two typed letters signed ("SDH" in pencil) to Prudence Whitfield in New York (she was the estranged wife of fellow Black Mask detective fiction writer Raoul Whitfield), addressed variously as "Dear Pru," "Dearest Pru," and "Pru darling"; the Aleutians and Fort Richardson (near Anchorage), 20 July 1944 to 15 January 1945. Together 4 letters, 6 pages 4to (the ALSs, both in pencil, totalling 4 pages on 4 sheets of lined paper), some marginal ink markings and a small ink number in the upper left-hand corner of each letter (all presumably by the recipient: the numbers are 22, 58, 62, and 86). With photocopies of 8 other letters from Hammett to Prudence Whitfield, 5 March 1944 to 20 April 1945 (with broken numbering from 6 to 104). "NO WORLD FOR THE INNOCENT" Often flirtatious letters written at age 50 while Hammett was stationed in the Aleutians, editing an Army newspaper. 20 July 1944: "I saw the [Hollywood columnist Luella] Parson's item about my entertaining the boys, but it didn't arouse any indignation in me. It is quite natural that she should think that the most worth while endeavor I could be up to. The boys thought it the funniest thing they'd read since Leonard Lyons's story about my having refused a commission. My favorite one, though, is still the one about my having given up an income of $100,000 a year to come into the Army...truth is...it's many a day since I worked hard enough to make that much money...I told you before what I thought of the photo -- that you are very lovely and desirable in it and my only objection to it is that it makes me write you too many letters..." 21 October 1944: "...you're not here and who the hell else do I want to visit just now? Which brings me around to thinking that it's Saturday afternoon and, unless you're gone out of town for the weekend, you're most likely at loose ends, as everybody in New York is Saturday afternoon unless my memory is cockeyed. Maybe you'd be settling down in your new home. You'd have a date for tonight, of course, but after a couple of drinks -- and if I played my cards very carefully -- maybe you could be talked out of it. Anyhow, when I get back to New York -- certainly not this afternoon, but possibly some time in 1945 -- I mean to try..." 1 November 1944: "...Hallowe'en last night was a singularly dull one. There weren't even any fat crap games -- or at least none I could find -- though I did manage to pick up a hundred dollars or so in as piddling a one as I've ever fooled around with. But I left it around midnight and went home to bed. An Army bed is not the most exciting place in the world, but you seldom feel that you're wasting your time in it. (That's my philosophy for today.)..." 15 January 1945 (from Fort Richardson): "...A nicer part of the morning was a letter from you. I'm sorry about Hazel's nightclub trouble. I guess it goes to show this is no world for the innocent. And I wish you'd stop fretting about my so-called kindness and what you should have done instead of what you did do and the like...I hope your apartment deal has been settled by now, so you'll feel more or less permanently installed to sweat out the future. My thought for today is that uncertainty is a son of a bitch...I can't help it if I sound frivolous this morning. There have been times when I took the war more seriously, but right now its more serious aspects aren't in the forefront of what I like to call my mind. Much love is in the fore-front, however." In one of the photocopied letters (no. 6, of 5 March 1944) Hammett writes of Raoul Whitfield: "I had a letter from Raoul late last month, sounding fairly cheerful. He said he was taking his test the next day and hoped to be saying goodby to the hospital in March. [Hammett sent the broke and ill Whitfield $500; his friend died the following year.] Of you he wrote: 'Pru is also busy, but she writes quite often and has really been a big help -- though I'll