#american-literature — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #american-literature, aggregated by home.social.
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In my latest blog post you can get acquainted with Sara Teasdale's poem “Spring Rain”, first published in 1917.
In many ways typical of her style of writing, the poem is simple yet deep, using imagery from the natural world to reflect on the poet’s emotions and memories: stormy, thunderous, passionate.
https://grammaticus.blog/2026/05/13/spring-rain-by-sara-teasdale/
Image credit: Levi Guzman via Unsplash
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In my latest blog post you can get acquainted with Sara Teasdale's poem “Spring Rain”, first published in 1917.
In many ways typical of her style of writing, the poem is simple yet deep, using imagery from the natural world to reflect on the poet’s emotions and memories: stormy, thunderous, passionate.
https://grammaticus.blog/2026/05/13/spring-rain-by-sara-teasdale/
Image credit: Levi Guzman via Unsplash
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In my latest blog post you can get acquainted with Sara Teasdale's poem “Spring Rain”, first published in 1917.
In many ways typical of her style of writing, the poem is simple yet deep, using imagery from the natural world to reflect on the poet’s emotions and memories: stormy, thunderous, passionate.
https://grammaticus.blog/2026/05/13/spring-rain-by-sara-teasdale/
Image credit: Levi Guzman via Unsplash
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In my latest blog post you can get acquainted with Sara Teasdale's poem “Spring Rain”, first published in 1917.
In many ways typical of her style of writing, the poem is simple yet deep, using imagery from the natural world to reflect on the poet’s emotions and memories: stormy, thunderous, passionate.
https://grammaticus.blog/2026/05/13/spring-rain-by-sara-teasdale/
Image credit: Levi Guzman via Unsplash
-
In my latest blog post you can get acquainted with Sara Teasdale's poem “Spring Rain”, first published in 1917.
In many ways typical of her style of writing, the poem is simple yet deep, using imagery from the natural world to reflect on the poet’s emotions and memories: stormy, thunderous, passionate.
https://grammaticus.blog/2026/05/13/spring-rain-by-sara-teasdale/
Image credit: Levi Guzman via Unsplash
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“Spring Rain” by Sara Teasdale
Sara Teasdale (1884-1933) was an American poet, celebrated for her works that explored themes such as love, beauty, nature, and mortality. Born in St. Louis, Missouri, she published her first collection of poems in 1907 as a member of “The Potters”—a group of young women authors. She quickly gained recognition for the clarity and simplicity of her writing. Notably, she won a Pullitzer prize in 1918 for the collection Love Songs. Sadly, her life was marked by severe personal struggles, including a lonely marriage, divorce, and declining health, ultimately leading to her tragic death by suicide. She is still remembered as an important voice of the early 20th-century American literature.
Sara TeasdaleIn this post we’ll get acquainted with her poem “Spring Rain”, first published in 1917. In many ways typical of her style of writing, the poem is simple yet deep, using imagery from the natural world to reflect on the poet’s emotions and memories. In the first stanza, the sounds of rain and thunder trigger a recollection of a past love; the rest of the poem takes us down the memory lane. You’ll notice that the poem itself is brief, just like a typical spring rain; and the weather described is stormy and intense—just like passionate young love.
I thought I had forgotten,
But it all came back again
To-night with the first spring thunder
In a rush of rain.
I remembered a darkened doorway
Where we stood while the storm swept by,
Thunder gripping the earth
And lightning scrawled on the sky.
The passing motor busses swayed,
For the street was a river of rain,
Lashed into little golden waves
In the lamp light's stain.
With the wild spring rain and thunder
My heart was wild and gay;
Your eyes said more to me that night
Than your lips would ever say...
I thought I had forgotten,
But it all came back again
To-night with the first spring thunder
In a rush of rain.RECOMMENDED RESOURCES
Love Songs by Sara Teasdale – free ebook, downloadable in various formats
Sara Teasdale’s biography – a Poetry Foundation page
COVER PHOTO CREDIT
Image by Levi Guzman via Unsplash
NOTES
I’m a freelance language tutor (English, Latin, Classical Greek), researcher, and a literary scholar currently based in Belgrade, Serbia.
If you wish to receive new content from my blog – as soon as it’s published – please enter your email address in the subscribe box below.
To support my work, you can send me a donation via PayPal. It would be greatly appreciated!
#AmericanLiterature #EnglishLiterature #literature #love #memory #poem #poetry #readingComprehension #SaraTeasdale #spring -
“Spring Rain” by Sara Teasdale
Sara Teasdale (1884-1933) was an American poet, celebrated for her works that explored themes such as love, beauty, nature, and mortality. Born in St. Louis, Missouri, she published her first collection of poems in 1907 as a member of “The Potters”—a group of young women authors. She quickly gained recognition for the clarity and simplicity of her writing. Notably, she won a Pullitzer prize in 1918 for the collection Love Songs. Sadly, her life was marked by severe personal struggles, including a lonely marriage, divorce, and declining health, ultimately leading to her tragic death by suicide. She is still remembered as an important voice of the early 20th-century American literature.
Sara TeasdaleIn this post we’ll get acquainted with her poem “Spring Rain”, first published in 1917. In many ways typical of her style of writing, the poem is simple yet deep, using imagery from the natural world to reflect on the poet’s emotions and memories. In the first stanza, the sounds of rain and thunder trigger a recollection of a past love; the rest of the poem takes us down the memory lane. You’ll notice that the poem itself is brief, just like a typical spring rain; and the weather described is stormy and intense—just like passionate young love.
I thought I had forgotten,
But it all came back again
To-night with the first spring thunder
In a rush of rain.
I remembered a darkened doorway
Where we stood while the storm swept by,
Thunder gripping the earth
And lightning scrawled on the sky.
The passing motor busses swayed,
For the street was a river of rain,
Lashed into little golden waves
In the lamp light's stain.
With the wild spring rain and thunder
My heart was wild and gay;
Your eyes said more to me that night
Than your lips would ever say...
I thought I had forgotten,
But it all came back again
To-night with the first spring thunder
In a rush of rain.RECOMMENDED RESOURCES
Love Songs by Sara Teasdale – free ebook, downloadable in various formats
Sara Teasdale’s biography – a Poetry Foundation page
COVER PHOTO CREDIT
Image by Levi Guzman via Unsplash
NOTES
I’m a freelance language tutor (English, Latin, Classical Greek), researcher, and a literary scholar currently based in Belgrade, Serbia.
If you wish to receive new content from my blog – as soon as it’s published – please enter your email address in the subscribe box below.
To support my work, you can send me a donation via PayPal. It would be greatly appreciated!
#AmericanLiterature #EnglishLiterature #literature #love #memory #poem #poetry #readingComprehension #SaraTeasdale #spring -
“Spring Rain” by Sara Teasdale
Sara Teasdale (1884-1933) was an American poet, celebrated for her works that explored themes such as love, beauty, nature, and mortality. Born in St. Louis, Missouri, she published her first collection of poems in 1907 as a member of “The Potters”—a group of young women authors. She quickly gained recognition for the clarity and simplicity of her writing. Notably, she won a Pullitzer prize in 1918 for the collection Love Songs. Sadly, her life was marked by severe personal struggles, including a lonely marriage, divorce, and declining health, ultimately leading to her tragic death by suicide. She is still remembered as an important voice of the early 20th-century American literature.
Sara TeasdaleIn this post we’ll get acquainted with her poem “Spring Rain”, first published in 1917. In many ways typical of her style of writing, the poem is simple yet deep, using imagery from the natural world to reflect on the poet’s emotions and memories. In the first stanza, the sounds of rain and thunder trigger a recollection of a past love; the rest of the poem takes us down the memory lane. You’ll notice that the poem itself is brief, just like a typical spring rain; and the weather described is stormy and intense—just like passionate young love.
I thought I had forgotten,
But it all came back again
To-night with the first spring thunder
In a rush of rain.
I remembered a darkened doorway
Where we stood while the storm swept by,
Thunder gripping the earth
And lightning scrawled on the sky.
The passing motor busses swayed,
For the street was a river of rain,
Lashed into little golden waves
In the lamp light's stain.
With the wild spring rain and thunder
My heart was wild and gay;
Your eyes said more to me that night
Than your lips would ever say...
I thought I had forgotten,
But it all came back again
To-night with the first spring thunder
In a rush of rain.RECOMMENDED RESOURCES
Love Songs by Sara Teasdale – free ebook, downloadable in various formats
Sara Teasdale’s biography – a Poetry Foundation page
COVER PHOTO CREDIT
Image by Levi Guzman via Unsplash
NOTES
I’m a freelance language tutor (English, Latin, Classical Greek), researcher, and a literary scholar currently based in Belgrade, Serbia.
If you wish to receive new content from my blog – as soon as it’s published – please enter your email address in the subscribe box below.
To support my work, you can send me a donation via PayPal. It would be greatly appreciated!
#AmericanLiterature #EnglishLiterature #literature #love #memory #poem #poetry #readingComprehension #SaraTeasdale #spring -
“Spring Rain” by Sara Teasdale
Sara Teasdale (1884-1933) was an American poet, celebrated for her works that explored themes such as love, beauty, nature, and mortality. Born in St. Louis, Missouri, she published her first collection of poems in 1907 as a member of “The Potters”—a group of young women authors. She quickly gained recognition for the clarity and simplicity of her writing. Notably, she won a Pullitzer prize in 1918 for the collection Love Songs. Sadly, her life was marked by severe personal struggles, including a lonely marriage, divorce, and declining health, ultimately leading to her tragic death by suicide. She is still remembered as an important voice of the early 20th-century American literature.
Sara TeasdaleIn this post we’ll get acquainted with her poem “Spring Rain”, first published in 1917. In many ways typical of her style of writing, the poem is simple yet deep, using imagery from the natural world to reflect on the poet’s emotions and memories. In the first stanza, the sounds of rain and thunder trigger a recollection of a past love; the rest of the poem takes us down the memory lane. You’ll notice that the poem itself is brief, just like a typical spring rain; and the weather described is stormy and intense—just like passionate young love.
I thought I had forgotten,
But it all came back again
To-night with the first spring thunder
In a rush of rain.
I remembered a darkened doorway
Where we stood while the storm swept by,
Thunder gripping the earth
And lightning scrawled on the sky.
The passing motor busses swayed,
For the street was a river of rain,
Lashed into little golden waves
In the lamp light's stain.
With the wild spring rain and thunder
My heart was wild and gay;
Your eyes said more to me that night
Than your lips would ever say...
I thought I had forgotten,
But it all came back again
To-night with the first spring thunder
In a rush of rain.RECOMMENDED RESOURCES
Love Songs by Sara Teasdale – free ebook, downloadable in various formats
Sara Teasdale’s biography – a Poetry Foundation page
COVER PHOTO CREDIT
Image by Levi Guzman via Unsplash
NOTES
I’m a freelance language tutor (English, Latin, Classical Greek), researcher, and a literary scholar currently based in Belgrade, Serbia.
If you wish to receive new content from my blog – as soon as it’s published – please enter your email address in the subscribe box below.
To support my work, you can send me a donation via PayPal. It would be greatly appreciated!
#AmericanLiterature #EnglishLiterature #literature #love #memory #poem #poetry #readingComprehension #SaraTeasdale #spring -
“Spring Rain” by Sara Teasdale
Sara Teasdale (1884-1933) was an American poet, celebrated for her works that explored themes such as love, beauty, nature, and mortality. Born in St. Louis, Missouri, she published her first collection of poems in 1907 as a member of “The Potters”—a group of young women authors. She quickly gained recognition for the clarity and simplicity of her writing. Notably, she won a Pullitzer prize in 1918 for the collection Love Songs. Sadly, her life was marked by severe personal struggles, including a lonely marriage, divorce, and declining health, ultimately leading to her tragic death by suicide. She is still remembered as an important voice of the early 20th-century American literature.
Sara TeasdaleIn this post we’ll get acquainted with her poem “Spring Rain”, first published in 1917. In many ways typical of her style of writing, the poem is simple yet deep, using imagery from the natural world to reflect on the poet’s emotions and memories. In the first stanza, the sounds of rain and thunder trigger a recollection of a past love; the rest of the poem takes us down the memory lane. You’ll notice that the poem itself is brief, just like a typical spring rain; and the weather described is stormy and intense—just like passionate young love.
I thought I had forgotten,
But it all came back again
To-night with the first spring thunder
In a rush of rain.
I remembered a darkened doorway
Where we stood while the storm swept by,
Thunder gripping the earth
And lightning scrawled on the sky.
The passing motor busses swayed,
For the street was a river of rain,
Lashed into little golden waves
In the lamp light's stain.
With the wild spring rain and thunder
My heart was wild and gay;
Your eyes said more to me that night
Than your lips would ever say...
I thought I had forgotten,
But it all came back again
To-night with the first spring thunder
In a rush of rain.RECOMMENDED RESOURCES
Love Songs by Sara Teasdale – free ebook, downloadable in various formats
Sara Teasdale’s biography – a Poetry Foundation page
COVER PHOTO CREDIT
Image by Levi Guzman via Unsplash
NOTES
I’m a freelance language tutor (English, Latin, Classical Greek), researcher, and a literary scholar currently based in Belgrade, Serbia.
If you wish to receive new content from my blog – as soon as it’s published – please enter your email address in the subscribe box below.
To support my work, you can send me a donation via PayPal. It would be greatly appreciated!
#AmericanLiterature #EnglishLiterature #literature #love #memory #poem #poetry #readingComprehension #SaraTeasdale #spring -
This Sunday is #MothersDay in the US & Germany. Here's a 🧵 on books celebrating #womanhood across all ages - beyond #motherhood
- starting w #Girlhood by Melissa Febos - a collection of texts at the intersection of #essay & #memoir about growing up as a girl under patriarchy -
This Sunday is #MothersDay in the US & Germany. Here's a 🧵 on books celebrating #womanhood across all ages - beyond #motherhood
- starting w #Girlhood by Melissa Febos - a collection of texts at the intersection of #essay & #memoir about growing up as a girl under patriarchy -
This Sunday is #MothersDay in the US & Germany. Here's a 🧵 on books celebrating #womanhood across all ages - beyond #motherhood
- starting w #Girlhood by Melissa Febos - a collection of texts at the intersection of #essay & #memoir about growing up as a girl under patriarchy -
Today in #newbooks in our #library - 2 new #biofiction novels on #AgathaChristie 👑
The Queen of Crime disappeared for 11 days in 1926. These 2 novels by Marie Benedict & Nina de Gramont fictionalise this real #mystery in different ways -
Today in #newbooks in our #library - 2 new #biofiction novels on #AgathaChristie 👑
The Queen of Crime disappeared for 11 days in 1926. These 2 novels by Marie Benedict & Nina de Gramont fictionalise this real #mystery in different ways -
Today in #newbooks in our #library - 2 new #biofiction novels on #AgathaChristie 👑
The Queen of Crime disappeared for 11 days in 1926. These 2 novels by Marie Benedict & Nina de Gramont fictionalise this real #mystery in different ways -
Today in #newbooks in our #library - 2 new #biofiction novels on #AgathaChristie 👑
The Queen of Crime disappeared for 11 days in 1926. These 2 novels by Marie Benedict & Nina de Gramont fictionalise this real #mystery in different ways -
100 Years of the Best American Short Stories "These forty stories represent their eras but also stand the test of time" Sale: $36 to $1.99 by Lorrie Moore, Heidi Pitlor Rating: 4.4/5 (1,081 Reviews) #ShortStories #Anthology #AmericanLiterature #Fiction #Reading #Books #BookSky
100 Years of the Best American... -
100 Years of the Best American Short Stories "These forty stories represent their eras but also stand the test of time" Sale: $36 to $1.99 by Lorrie Moore, Heidi Pitlor Rating: 4.4/5 (1,081 Reviews) #ShortStories #Anthology #AmericanLiterature #Fiction #Reading #Books #BookSky
100 Years of the Best American... -
100 Years of the Best American Short Stories "These forty stories represent their eras but also stand the test of time" Sale: $36 to $1.99 by Lorrie Moore, Heidi Pitlor Rating: 4.4/5 (1,081 Reviews) #ShortStories #Anthology #AmericanLiterature #Fiction #Reading #Books #BookSky
100 Years of the Best American... -
100 Years of the Best American Short Stories "These forty stories represent their eras but also stand the test of time" Sale: $36 to $1.99 by Lorrie Moore, Heidi Pitlor Rating: 4.4/5 (1,081 Reviews) #ShortStories #Anthology #AmericanLiterature #Fiction #Reading #Books #BookSky
100 Years of the Best American... -
I've read about Ayn Rand, and I've read short extracts from "Atlas Shrugged", supposedly her magnum opus.
Those extracts did not inspire me to plough through the whole of "Atlas Shrugged", but I thought to be fair I ought to read a complete work of hers, so I picked up a copy of her 1938 novella "Anthem".
In a repressive, techophobic, collectivist dystopia, a young man rebels, rediscovers electricity, and then escapes from captivity to be joined by his female lover. He hopes to rebuild a society based on individualism -- "Anthem" concludes with the protagonist determined to carve into the stone portal of his fort the "sacred word EGO".
Rand's writing is lifeless, with both characters and setting being little more than vehicles for the author's ponderous didacticism. The slight romance narrative smacks of sub-Hollywood teenage fantasy, with the protagonist renaming his lover "The Golden One", followed by her dubbing him 'The Unconquered".
The concluding pages are supposed to be a poetic invocation of egoism. Instead, they come across as Rand attempting to club the reader into submission.
I am pained to learn that this book is frequently assigned in US high schools, as it is devoid of literary merit and of no great significance in literary or cultural history. If teachers or school districts want to assign a mid 20C "antitotalitarian" work, why not press copies of "1984" into students' hands?
Nevertheless my afternoon was not entirely wasted, as I can now get through the rest of my life without having to read another word of this tiresome crank, yet have a clear conscience when I describe her as possessing not a shred of literary talent, because my judgment is based on a first hand acquaintance with her writing.
#Books #Literature #USLiterature #AmericanLiterature #AynRand #Anthem #RightWing
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I've read about Ayn Rand, and I've read short extracts from "Atlas Shrugged", supposedly her magnum opus.
Those extracts did not inspire me to plough through the whole of "Atlas Shrugged", but I thought to be fair I ought to read a complete work of hers, so I picked up a copy of her 1938 novella "Anthem".
In a repressive, techophobic, collectivist dystopia, a young man rebels, rediscovers electricity, and then escapes from captivity to be joined by his female lover. He hopes to rebuild a society based on individualism -- "Anthem" concludes with the protagonist determined to carve into the stone portal of his fort the "sacred word EGO".
Rand's writing is lifeless, with both characters and setting being little more than vehicles for the author's ponderous didacticism. The slight romance narrative smacks of sub-Hollywood teenage fantasy, with the protagonist renaming his lover "The Golden One", followed by her dubbing him 'The Unconquered".
The concluding pages are supposed to be a poetic invocation of egoism. Instead, they come across as Rand attempting to club the reader into submission.
I am pained to learn that this book is frequently assigned in US high schools, as it is devoid of literary merit and of no great significance in literary or cultural history. If teachers or school districts want to assign a mid 20C "antitotalitarian" work, why not press copies of "1984" into students' hands?
Nevertheless my afternoon was not entirely wasted, as I can now get through the rest of my life without having to read another word of this tiresome crank, yet have a clear conscience when I describe her as possessing not a shred of literary talent, because my judgment is based on a first hand acquaintance with her writing.
#Books #Literature #USLiterature #AmericanLiterature #AynRand #Anthem #RightWing
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I've read about Ayn Rand, and I've read short extracts from "Atlas Shrugged", supposedly her magnum opus.
Those extracts did not inspire me to plough through the whole of "Atlas Shrugged", but I thought to be fair I ought to read a complete work of hers, so I picked up a copy of her 1938 novella "Anthem".
In a repressive, techophobic, collectivist dystopia, a young man rebels, rediscovers electricity, and then escapes from captivity to be joined by his female lover. He hopes to rebuild a society based on individualism -- "Anthem" concludes with the protagonist determined to carve into the stone portal of his fort the "sacred word EGO".
Rand's writing is lifeless, with both characters and setting being little more than vehicles for the author's ponderous didacticism. The slight romance narrative smacks of sub-Hollywood teenage fantasy, with the protagonist renaming his lover "The Golden One", followed by her dubbing him 'The Unconquered".
The concluding pages are supposed to be a poetic invocation of egoism. Instead, they come across as Rand attempting to club the reader into submission.
I am pained to learn that this book is frequently assigned in US high schools, as it is devoid of literary merit and of no great significance in literary or cultural history. If teachers or school districts want to assign a mid 20C "antitotalitarian" work, why not press copies of "1984" into students' hands?
Nevertheless my afternoon was not entirely wasted, as I can now get through the rest of my life without having to read another word of this tiresome crank, yet have a clear conscience when I describe her as possessing not a shred of literary talent, because my judgment is based on a first hand acquaintance with her writing.
#Books #Literature #USLiterature #AmericanLiterature #AynRand #Anthem #RightWing
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I've read about Ayn Rand, and I've read short extracts from "Atlas Shrugged", supposedly her magnum opus.
Those extracts did not inspire me to plough through the whole of "Atlas Shrugged", but I thought to be fair I ought to read a complete work of hers, so I picked up a copy of her 1938 novella "Anthem".
In a repressive, techophobic, collectivist dystopia, a young man rebels, rediscovers electricity, and then escapes from captivity to be joined by his female lover. He hopes to rebuild a society based on individualism -- "Anthem" concludes with the protagonist determined to carve into the stone portal of his fort the "sacred word EGO".
Rand's writing is lifeless, with both characters and setting being little more than vehicles for the author's ponderous didacticism. The slight romance narrative smacks of sub-Hollywood teenage fantasy, with the protagonist renaming his lover "The Golden One", followed by her dubbing him 'The Unconquered".
The concluding pages are supposed to be a poetic invocation of egoism. Instead, they come across as Rand attempting to club the reader into submission.
I am pained to learn that this book is frequently assigned in US high schools, as it is devoid of literary merit and of no great significance in literary or cultural history. If teachers or school districts want to assign a mid 20C "antitotalitarian" work, why not press copies of "1984" into students' hands?
Nevertheless my afternoon was not entirely wasted, as I can now get through the rest of my life without having to read another word of this tiresome crank, yet have a clear conscience when I describe her as possessing not a shred of literary talent, because my judgment is based on a first hand acquaintance with her writing.
#Books #Literature #USLiterature #AmericanLiterature #AynRand #Anthem #RightWing
-
I've read about Ayn Rand, and I've read short extracts from "Atlas Shrugged", supposedly her magnum opus.
Those extracts did not inspire me to plough through the whole of "Atlas Shrugged", but I thought to be fair I ought to read a complete work of hers, so I picked up a copy of her 1938 novella "Anthem".
In a repressive, techophobic, collectivist dystopia, a young man rebels, rediscovers electricity, and then escapes from captivity to be joined by his female lover. He hopes to rebuild a society based on individualism -- "Anthem" concludes with the protagonist determined to carve into the stone portal of his fort the "sacred word EGO".
Rand's writing is lifeless, with both characters and setting being little more than vehicles for the author's ponderous didacticism. The slight romance narrative smacks of sub-Hollywood teenage fantasy, with the protagonist renaming his lover "The Golden One", followed by her dubbing him 'The Unconquered".
The concluding pages are supposed to be a poetic invocation of egoism. Instead, they come across as Rand attempting to club the reader into submission.
I am pained to learn that this book is frequently assigned in US high schools, as it is devoid of literary merit and of no great significance in literary or cultural history. If teachers or school districts want to assign a mid 20C "antitotalitarian" work, why not press copies of "1984" into students' hands?
Nevertheless my afternoon was not entirely wasted, as I can now get through the rest of my life without having to read another word of this tiresome crank, yet have a clear conscience when I describe her as possessing not a shred of literary talent, because my judgment is based on a first hand acquaintance with her writing.
#Books #Literature #USLiterature #AmericanLiterature #AynRand #Anthem #RightWing
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Raymond Chandler’s cannibalized stories
If I were asked to name my all-time favourite crime-fiction writer, I would struggle to place anyone above Raymond Chandler. In contemporary literature the one who comes closest is Peter Temple, who, like Chandler, took up the practice in middle age. There’s a lot to be said for it.
A late entrant to the fiction-writing game, Chandler completed seven novels in his lifetime; another one was finished posthumously. For readers it’s a very manageable total. I read the novels in my twenties and reread a few in my thirties.
I was less systematic with Chandler’s shorter work, with the result that I recently picked up an unread – and unusual – collection, Killer in the Rain, first published in 1964. Philip Durham, who was a professor of American literature at University of California, introduces this Penguin edition:
During his lifetime Raymond Chandler published twenty-three short stories. Yet of this relatively small output only fifteen are generally known to the reading public. For a quarter of a century the remaining eight have lain buried in the crumbling pages of old pulp magazines. And these eight stories are among his finest.
Killer in the Rain collects those eight stories. Curiously, though I had never read them before, I had what I described elsewhere (Mastodon; Bluesky) as a recurring experience of déjà lu: half-familiar lines, characters, and scenarios.
It turns out that Chandler ‘cannibalized’ these eight stories for his novels – he once said in a letter that he ‘won’t discard anything’ – and for that reason excluded them from collections published during his lifetime. This textual cannibalization has its own short paragraph on Wikipedia.
Repurposing one’s writing is a common practice. But it made Chandler uneasy, Durham writes, and he was able to justify it ‘only by leaving such stories buried, virtually unknown in the pages of the rapidly disappearing pulp magazines’. I also feel that it’s trickier in fiction than nonfiction. Durham again:
Turning short stories into cohesive novels tested the extent of Chandler’s skill. It meant combining and enlarging plots, maintaining a thematic consistency, blowing up scenes, and adapting, fusing, and adding characters.
Primary among the characters, of course, was Philip Marlowe, one of the great fictional detectives. For this creation Chandler drew on earlier protagonists, Killer in the Rain making visible the progression from a nameless first-person narrator to Carmady, John Dalmas, and John Evans.
Things were more complicated for secondary figures:
Of the twenty-one characters in The Big Sleep, seven were drawn directly from ‘The Curtain’, six were taken from ‘Killer in the Rain’, four were composites from the two stories, and four were new creations.
Perhaps most interestingly, at least from this editor’s point of view, is the expansion of entire scenes. One passage in ‘The Curtain’, set in a greenhouse, is about 1,100 words; in The Big Sleep it’s about 2,500. Durham presents the change in miniature, from the following forty-two words:
The air steamed. The walls and ceiling of the glass house dripped. In the halflight enormous tropical plants spread their blooms and branches all over the place, and the smell of them was almost as overpowering as the smell of boiling alcohol.
to these eighty-two:
The air was thick, wet, steamy, and larded with the cloying smell of tropical orchids in bloom. The glass walls and roof were heavily misted and big drops of moisture splashed down on the plants. The light had an unreal greenish colour, like light filtered through an aquarium tank. The plants filled the place, a forest of them, with nasty meaty leaves and stalks like the newly washed fingers of dead men. They smelled as overpowering as boiling alcohol under a blanket.
He finds both passages ‘intense and vivid’ and notes how each achieves its effect: the first through terseness, the second through mood, hyperbole, and ‘striking similes’. Chandler assembled Farewell, My Lovely and The Lady in the Lake in similar fashion, with variations and twists on the original material.
After Chandler’s death in 1959, frequent calls for the publication of these ‘lost’ stories led eventually to Killer in the Rain, with Durham concluding that ‘there no longer seems any good reason why, provided their origin is clearly explained, they should be denied to the many thousands of Chandler’s readers’.
As well as being thoroughly enjoyable in their own right, the stories can be appreciated as raw material and inspiration for the better-known novels, and they offer a nice insight into an artful form of literary transmutation.
*
An etymological note on cannibalize: The OED dates it to 1655, in the sense ‘To overwhelm, destroy, or eat away at, as if by cannibalism; to crush or manipulate (a person)’. The more literal sense came along two centuries later.
The figurative sense ‘To absorb or destroy (something of a similar kind)’, used especially in business contexts, emerged in 1920; not until World War II do we finally see the word as used in the current post, defined as:
To use (something) as a source of parts or content for another of a similar kind; to take (a part) from one thing to use in another.
The first item the OED records as being thus ‘cannibalized’ is a wrecked French plane (‘parts are stripped from it for use on damaged Allied ships’ —Stars & Stripes, London edition, 26 Nov. 1942, caption). Cannibal itself is borrowed from Latin canibales and Spanish caníbal.
#AmericanLiterature #books #crimeFiction #detectiveFiction #editing #etymology #literaryHistory #literature #PhilipMarlowe #RaymondChandler #reading #rewriting #shortStories #verbing #writers #writing -
Raymond Chandler’s cannibalized stories
If I were asked to name my all-time favourite crime-fiction writer, I would struggle to place anyone above Raymond Chandler. In contemporary literature the one who comes closest is Peter Temple, who, like Chandler, took up the practice in middle age. There’s a lot to be said for it.
A late entrant to the fiction-writing game, Chandler completed seven novels in his lifetime; another one was finished posthumously. For readers it’s a very manageable total. I read the novels in my twenties and reread a few in my thirties.
I was less systematic with Chandler’s shorter work, with the result that I recently picked up an unread – and unusual – collection, Killer in the Rain, first published in 1964. Philip Durham, who was a professor of American literature at University of California, introduces this Penguin edition:
During his lifetime Raymond Chandler published twenty-three short stories. Yet of this relatively small output only fifteen are generally known to the reading public. For a quarter of a century the remaining eight have lain buried in the crumbling pages of old pulp magazines. And these eight stories are among his finest.
Killer in the Rain collects those eight stories. Curiously, though I had never read them before, I had what I described elsewhere (Mastodon; Bluesky) as a recurring experience of déjà lu: half-familiar lines, characters, and scenarios.
It turns out that Chandler ‘cannibalized’ these eight stories for his novels – he once said in a letter that he ‘won’t discard anything’ – and for that reason excluded them from collections published during his lifetime. This textual cannibalization has its own short paragraph on Wikipedia.
Repurposing one’s writing is a common practice. But it made Chandler uneasy, Durham writes, and he was able to justify it ‘only by leaving such stories buried, virtually unknown in the pages of the rapidly disappearing pulp magazines’. I also feel that it’s trickier in fiction than nonfiction. Durham again:
Turning short stories into cohesive novels tested the extent of Chandler’s skill. It meant combining and enlarging plots, maintaining a thematic consistency, blowing up scenes, and adapting, fusing, and adding characters.
Primary among the characters, of course, was Philip Marlowe, one of the great fictional detectives. For this creation Chandler drew on earlier protagonists, Killer in the Rain making visible the progression from a nameless first-person narrator to Carmady, John Dalmas, and John Evans.
Things were more complicated for secondary figures:
Of the twenty-one characters in The Big Sleep, seven were drawn directly from ‘The Curtain’, six were taken from ‘Killer in the Rain’, four were composites from the two stories, and four were new creations.
Perhaps most interestingly, at least from this editor’s point of view, is the expansion of entire scenes. One passage in ‘The Curtain’, set in a greenhouse, is about 1,100 words; in The Big Sleep it’s about 2,500. Durham presents the change in miniature, from the following forty-two words:
The air steamed. The walls and ceiling of the glass house dripped. In the halflight enormous tropical plants spread their blooms and branches all over the place, and the smell of them was almost as overpowering as the smell of boiling alcohol.
to these eighty-two:
The air was thick, wet, steamy, and larded with the cloying smell of tropical orchids in bloom. The glass walls and roof were heavily misted and big drops of moisture splashed down on the plants. The light had an unreal greenish colour, like light filtered through an aquarium tank. The plants filled the place, a forest of them, with nasty meaty leaves and stalks like the newly washed fingers of dead men. They smelled as overpowering as boiling alcohol under a blanket.
He finds both passages ‘intense and vivid’ and notes how each achieves its effect: the first through terseness, the second through mood, hyperbole, and ‘striking similes’. Chandler assembled Farewell, My Lovely and The Lady in the Lake in similar fashion, with variations and twists on the original material.
After Chandler’s death in 1959, frequent calls for the publication of these ‘lost’ stories led eventually to Killer in the Rain, with Durham concluding that ‘there no longer seems any good reason why, provided their origin is clearly explained, they should be denied to the many thousands of Chandler’s readers’.
As well as being thoroughly enjoyable in their own right, the stories can be appreciated as raw material and inspiration for the better-known novels, and they offer a nice insight into an artful form of literary transmutation.
*
An etymological note on cannibalize: The OED dates it to 1655, in the sense ‘To overwhelm, destroy, or eat away at, as if by cannibalism; to crush or manipulate (a person)’. The more literal sense came along two centuries later.
The figurative sense ‘To absorb or destroy (something of a similar kind)’, used especially in business contexts, emerged in 1920; not until World War II do we finally see the word as used in the current post, defined as:
To use (something) as a source of parts or content for another of a similar kind; to take (a part) from one thing to use in another.
The first item the OED records as being thus ‘cannibalized’ is a wrecked French plane (‘parts are stripped from it for use on damaged Allied ships’ —Stars & Stripes, London edition, 26 Nov. 1942, caption). Cannibal itself is borrowed from Latin canibales and Spanish caníbal.
#AmericanLiterature #books #crimeFiction #detectiveFiction #editing #etymology #literaryHistory #literature #PhilipMarlowe #RaymondChandler #reading #rewriting #shortStories #verbing #writers #writing -
Raymond Chandler’s cannibalized stories
If I were asked to name my all-time favourite crime-fiction writer, I would struggle to place anyone above Raymond Chandler. In contemporary literature the one who comes closest is Peter Temple, who, like Chandler, took up the practice in middle age. There’s a lot to be said for it.
A late entrant to the fiction-writing game, Chandler completed seven novels in his lifetime; another one was finished posthumously. For readers it’s a very manageable total. I read the novels in my twenties and reread a few in my thirties.
I was less systematic with Chandler’s shorter work, with the result that I recently picked up an unread – and unusual – collection, Killer in the Rain, first published in 1964. Philip Durham, who was a professor of American literature at University of California, introduces this Penguin edition:
During his lifetime Raymond Chandler published twenty-three short stories. Yet of this relatively small output only fifteen are generally known to the reading public. For a quarter of a century the remaining eight have lain buried in the crumbling pages of old pulp magazines. And these eight stories are among his finest.
Killer in the Rain collects those eight stories. Curiously, though I had never read them before, I had what I described elsewhere (Mastodon; Bluesky) as a recurring experience of déjà lu: half-familiar lines, characters, and scenarios.
It turns out that Chandler ‘cannibalized’ these eight stories for his novels – he once said in a letter that he ‘won’t discard anything’ – and for that reason excluded them from collections published during his lifetime. This textual cannibalization has its own short paragraph on Wikipedia.
Repurposing one’s writing is a common practice. But it made Chandler uneasy, Durham writes, and he was able to justify it ‘only by leaving such stories buried, virtually unknown in the pages of the rapidly disappearing pulp magazines’. I also feel that it’s trickier in fiction than nonfiction. Durham again:
Turning short stories into cohesive novels tested the extent of Chandler’s skill. It meant combining and enlarging plots, maintaining a thematic consistency, blowing up scenes, and adapting, fusing, and adding characters.
Primary among the characters, of course, was Philip Marlowe, one of the great fictional detectives. For this creation Chandler drew on earlier protagonists, Killer in the Rain making visible the progression from a nameless first-person narrator to Carmady, John Dalmas, and John Evans.
Things were more complicated for secondary figures:
Of the twenty-one characters in The Big Sleep, seven were drawn directly from ‘The Curtain’, six were taken from ‘Killer in the Rain’, four were composites from the two stories, and four were new creations.
Perhaps most interestingly, at least from this editor’s point of view, is the expansion of entire scenes. One passage in ‘The Curtain’, set in a greenhouse, is about 1,100 words; in The Big Sleep it’s about 2,500. Durham presents the change in miniature, from the following forty-two words:
The air steamed. The walls and ceiling of the glass house dripped. In the halflight enormous tropical plants spread their blooms and branches all over the place, and the smell of them was almost as overpowering as the smell of boiling alcohol.
to these eighty-two:
The air was thick, wet, steamy, and larded with the cloying smell of tropical orchids in bloom. The glass walls and roof were heavily misted and big drops of moisture splashed down on the plants. The light had an unreal greenish colour, like light filtered through an aquarium tank. The plants filled the place, a forest of them, with nasty meaty leaves and stalks like the newly washed fingers of dead men. They smelled as overpowering as boiling alcohol under a blanket.
He finds both passages ‘intense and vivid’ and notes how each achieves its effect: the first through terseness, the second through mood, hyperbole, and ‘striking similes’. Chandler assembled Farewell, My Lovely and The Lady in the Lake in similar fashion, with variations and twists on the original material.
After Chandler’s death in 1959, frequent calls for the publication of these ‘lost’ stories led eventually to Killer in the Rain, with Durham concluding that ‘there no longer seems any good reason why, provided their origin is clearly explained, they should be denied to the many thousands of Chandler’s readers’.
As well as being thoroughly enjoyable in their own right, the stories can be appreciated as raw material and inspiration for the better-known novels, and they offer a nice insight into an artful form of literary transmutation.
*
An etymological note on cannibalize: The OED dates it to 1655, in the sense ‘To overwhelm, destroy, or eat away at, as if by cannibalism; to crush or manipulate (a person)’. The more literal sense came along two centuries later.
The figurative sense ‘To absorb or destroy (something of a similar kind)’, used especially in business contexts, emerged in 1920; not until World War II do we finally see the word as used in the current post, defined as:
To use (something) as a source of parts or content for another of a similar kind; to take (a part) from one thing to use in another.
The first item the OED records as being thus ‘cannibalized’ is a wrecked French plane (‘parts are stripped from it for use on damaged Allied ships’ —Stars & Stripes, London edition, 26 Nov. 1942, caption). Cannibal itself is borrowed from Latin canibales and Spanish caníbal.
#AmericanLiterature #books #crimeFiction #detectiveFiction #editing #etymology #literaryHistory #literature #PhilipMarlowe #RaymondChandler #reading #rewriting #shortStories #verbing #writers #writing -
The final book in today's 🧵on Asia & the anglophone world: "American Koan" by Ben Van Overmeire - a study on the #zen #koan & self in #autobiographies by Natalie Goldberg, Peter Matthiessen, Philip Kapleau, Ruth Ozeki & others of #AmericanLiterature
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The final book in today's 🧵on Asia & the anglophone world: "American Koan" by Ben Van Overmeire - a study on the #zen #koan & self in #autobiographies by Natalie Goldberg, Peter Matthiessen, Philip Kapleau, Ruth Ozeki & others of #AmericanLiterature
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The final book in today's 🧵on Asia & the anglophone world: "American Koan" by Ben Van Overmeire - a study on the #zen #koan & self in #autobiographies by Natalie Goldberg, Peter Matthiessen, Philip Kapleau, Ruth Ozeki & others of #AmericanLiterature
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The final book in today's 🧵on Asia & the anglophone world: "American Koan" by Ben Van Overmeire - a study on the #zen #koan & self in #autobiographies by Natalie Goldberg, Peter Matthiessen, Philip Kapleau, Ruth Ozeki & others of #AmericanLiterature
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Today is #InternationalChildrensBookDay - so book 1 of this 🧵by Sybille A. Jagusch is on depictions of #Japan in 200 years of American #ChildrensBooks - from #travelogues to picture books, adventure stories #folklore & more
#ICBD #AmericanLiterature #Asia #interculturalexchange #LiteraryStudies
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Today is #InternationalChildrensBookDay - so book 1 of this 🧵by Sybille A. Jagusch is on depictions of #Japan in 200 years of American #ChildrensBooks - from #travelogues to picture books, adventure stories #folklore & more
#ICBD #AmericanLiterature #Asia #interculturalexchange #LiteraryStudies
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Today is #InternationalChildrensBookDay - so book 1 of this 🧵by Sybille A. Jagusch is on depictions of #Japan in 200 years of American #ChildrensBooks - from #travelogues to picture books, adventure stories #folklore & more
#ICBD #AmericanLiterature #Asia #interculturalexchange #LiteraryStudies
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Today is #InternationalChildrensBookDay - so book 1 of this 🧵by Sybille A. Jagusch is on depictions of #Japan in 200 years of American #ChildrensBooks - from #travelogues to picture books, adventure stories #folklore & more
#ICBD #AmericanLiterature #Asia #interculturalexchange #LiteraryStudies
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Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner ★★★★☆
Two timelines, one quietly devastating story. Stegner tested my patience across 500 pages, then rewarded it with a spectacular ending. This Pulitzer winner might just be his most enduring.#Books #BookReview #LiteraryFiction #AmericanLiterature #ClassicLit
https://books.robertbreen.com/2025/11/03/angle-of-repose-by-wallace-stegner/
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Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner ★★★★☆
Two timelines, one quietly devastating story. Stegner tested my patience across 500 pages, then rewarded it with a spectacular ending. This Pulitzer winner might just be his most enduring.#Books #BookReview #LiteraryFiction #AmericanLiterature #ClassicLit
https://books.robertbreen.com/2025/11/03/angle-of-repose-by-wallace-stegner/
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Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner ★★★★☆
Two timelines, one quietly devastating story. Stegner tested my patience across 500 pages, then rewarded it with a spectacular ending. This Pulitzer winner might just be his most enduring.#Books #BookReview #LiteraryFiction #AmericanLiterature #ClassicLit
https://books.robertbreen.com/2025/11/03/angle-of-repose-by-wallace-stegner/
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Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner ★★★★☆
Two timelines, one quietly devastating story. Stegner tested my patience across 500 pages, then rewarded it with a spectacular ending. This Pulitzer winner might just be his most enduring.#Books #BookReview #LiteraryFiction #AmericanLiterature #ClassicLit
https://books.robertbreen.com/2025/11/03/angle-of-repose-by-wallace-stegner/
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Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner ★★★★☆
Two timelines, one quietly devastating story. Stegner tested my patience across 500 pages, then rewarded it with a spectacular ending. This Pulitzer winner might just be his most enduring.#Books #BookReview #LiteraryFiction #AmericanLiterature #ClassicLit
https://books.robertbreen.com/2025/11/03/angle-of-repose-by-wallace-stegner/
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Damn. I knew, and then temporarily forgot, that "The Nervous Set" was a beatnik / Beat Generation era (inspired) musical, but I failed to pick up on "The Ballad of the Sad Young Men" being a direct lift from F. Scott Fitzgerald - who, while not a Beat author, can definitely be considered to be a Beat precursor. Heck, the whole Lost Generation was a direct influence, once you see it.
I love finding these interlocking webs betwixt different eras and movements. (And feel a little silly for not catching it sooner.)
#F.-Scott-Fitzgerald #Beat-Generation #Beatnik #beatific #American-literature #20th-c-literature #musical-theatre #The-Lost-Generation #Jack-Kerouac -
All sorts of things are wrong in my life, but all sorts of things are right too.
I can share an example of the latter. As I sit with a glass of White Horse, I am trying to decide which of these two books to read next:
Washington Irving -- Tales of the Alhambra
Franz Werfel -- The Forty Days of Musa Dagh
I'm lucky to be faced with such a choice.
#Books #TalesOfTheAlhambra #WashingtonIrving #AmericanLiterature #FranzWerfel #TheFortyDaysOfMusaDagh #GermanLiterature
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All sorts of things are wrong in my life, but all sorts of things are right too.
I can share an example of the latter. As I sit with a glass of White Horse, I am trying to decide which of these two books to read next:
Washington Irving -- Tales of the Alhambra
Franz Werfel -- The Forty Days of Musa Dagh
I'm lucky to be faced with such a choice.
#Books #TalesOfTheAlhambra #WashingtonIrving #AmericanLiterature #FranzWerfel #TheFortyDaysOfMusaDagh #GermanLiterature
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All sorts of things are wrong in my life, but all sorts of things are right too.
I can share an example of the latter. As I sit with a glass of White Horse, I am trying to decide which of these two books to read next:
Washington Irving -- Tales of the Alhambra
Franz Werfel -- The Forty Days of Musa Dagh
I'm lucky to be faced with such a choice.
#Books #TalesOfTheAlhambra #WashingtonIrving #AmericanLiterature #FranzWerfel #TheFortyDaysOfMusaDagh #GermanLiterature
-
All sorts of things are wrong in my life, but all sorts of things are right too.
I can share an example of the latter. As I sit with a glass of White Horse, I am trying to decide which of these two books to read next:
Washington Irving -- Tales of the Alhambra
Franz Werfel -- The Forty Days of Musa Dagh
I'm lucky to be faced with such a choice.
#Books #TalesOfTheAlhambra #WashingtonIrving #AmericanLiterature #FranzWerfel #TheFortyDaysOfMusaDagh #GermanLiterature
-
All sorts of things are wrong in my life, but all sorts of things are right too.
I can share an example of the latter. As I sit with a glass of White Horse, I am trying to decide which of these two books to read next:
Washington Irving -- Tales of the Alhambra
Franz Werfel -- The Forty Days of Musa Dagh
I'm lucky to be faced with such a choice.
#Books #TalesOfTheAlhambra #WashingtonIrving #AmericanLiterature #FranzWerfel #TheFortyDaysOfMusaDagh #GermanLiterature
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Today would have been the 100th birthday of Frank O'Hara!
Celebrate the famous New York poet by reading some of his texts - we have a large selection of books by & on him in our collection!#FrankOHara #QueerWriters #AmericanPoetry #AmericanLiterature #Poetry #BOTD #OTD
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Today would have been the 100th birthday of Frank O'Hara!
Celebrate the famous New York poet by reading some of his texts - we have a large selection of books by & on him in our collection!#FrankOHara #QueerWriters #AmericanPoetry #AmericanLiterature #Poetry #BOTD #OTD
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Today would have been the 100th birthday of Frank O'Hara!
Celebrate the famous New York poet by reading some of his texts - we have a large selection of books by & on him in our collection!#FrankOHara #QueerWriters #AmericanPoetry #AmericanLiterature #Poetry #BOTD #OTD
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We added 2 new titles on #adolescence & processes of change!
Julia Pfeiffer's "Transforming Girls" talks about the #transformation from #backfisch to #womanhood within 19th c #youngadultliterature in German & #AmericanLiterature#VictorianStudies #LiteraryStudies #girlhood #ChildrensLiterature #YA
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We added 2 new titles on #adolescence & processes of change!
Julia Pfeiffer's "Transforming Girls" talks about the #transformation from #backfisch to #womanhood within 19th c #youngadultliterature in German & #AmericanLiterature#VictorianStudies #LiteraryStudies #girlhood #ChildrensLiterature #YA
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We added 2 new titles on #adolescence & processes of change!
Julia Pfeiffer's "Transforming Girls" talks about the #transformation from #backfisch to #womanhood within 19th c #youngadultliterature in German & #AmericanLiterature#VictorianStudies #LiteraryStudies #girlhood #ChildrensLiterature #YA
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We added 2 new titles on #adolescence & processes of change!
Julia Pfeiffer's "Transforming Girls" talks about the #transformation from #backfisch to #womanhood within 19th c #youngadultliterature in German & #AmericanLiterature#VictorianStudies #LiteraryStudies #girlhood #ChildrensLiterature #YA
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Flannery O'Connor, born #OTD in 1925.
In my latest blog post, I'm sharing a short selection of films and other resources on this amazing Southern author - one of the best representatives of the Southern Gothic genre. (And one of my all-time favourite writers! ❤️)
https://grammaticus.blog/2026/03/25/films-flannery/
#flanneryoconnor #literature #americanliterature #southerngothic #englishteacher
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Flannery O'Connor, born #OTD in 1925.
In my latest blog post, I'm sharing a short selection of films and other resources on this amazing Southern author - one of the best representatives of the Southern Gothic genre. (And one of my all-time favourite writers! ❤️)
https://grammaticus.blog/2026/03/25/films-flannery/
#flanneryoconnor #literature #americanliterature #southerngothic #englishteacher
-
Flannery O'Connor, born #OTD in 1925.
In my latest blog post, I'm sharing a short selection of films and other resources on this amazing Southern author - one of the best representatives of the Southern Gothic genre. (And one of my all-time favourite writers! ❤️)
https://grammaticus.blog/2026/03/25/films-flannery/
#flanneryoconnor #literature #americanliterature #southerngothic #englishteacher
-
Flannery O'Connor, born #OTD in 1925.
In my latest blog post, I'm sharing a short selection of films and other resources on this amazing Southern author - one of the best representatives of the Southern Gothic genre. (And one of my all-time favourite writers! ❤️)
https://grammaticus.blog/2026/03/25/films-flannery/
#flanneryoconnor #literature #americanliterature #southerngothic #englishteacher
