Raymond Chandler's books about Philip Marlowe not only laid the foundations for the hardboiled detective genre, but also became modern classics in the broadest sense. “Raymond Chandler is a most original stylist, and his hero Philip Marlowe is as immortal as Sherlock Holmes,” wrote the venerable Anthony Burgess, and the famous poet W. H. Auden said: “Chandler’s prose should be read and appreciated not as momentary entertainment, but as a work art." This volume contains the complete collection of short-form works by the American master. The central character in these stories may be called by many names - Ted Carmady or Walter Gage, Johnny Dalmas or John Evans, Mallory or Philip Marlowe - but from the very beginning he represented a new type of detective hero: he is a romantic, a sentimental knight, always maintaining his individuality and observing a code of honor. He is not looking for adventure - they find it themselves, and with every right he can say: “Trouble is my trade...”