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About DonHerron.com
In 1977 Don Herron began leading The Dashiell Hammett Tour, now the longest-running literary tour in the nation. On this site you’ll find information on current walks — dates, where to meet, arranging tours by appointment — plus a hard-boiled blog with news, reviews of books and film, and a dash of noir.
The latest and greatest edition to self-guide you up and down the mean streets.
Willeford: The Book
Includes the first “Mr. Hunt” story, “Knives in the Dark.”
Tag Archives: Cap Shaw
Rediscovered: More Cap Shaw
A few days ago Brian Leno sent in scans of a book he has that comes from the library of famed Black Mask editor Joseph T. “Cap” Shaw — nothing less than the Hammett-edited Creeps by Night. Today he sends … Continue reading
Posted in Lit
Tagged Autographs, Black Mask, Book Collecting, Brian Leno, Cap Shaw, Simon and Schuster, The Hard-Boiled Omnibus
Hammett: Collecting Creeps by Night
Autograph Hound Super-Sunday again, in this instance spurred on by Terry Zobeck mentioning to me that he finally landed a copy of the Hammett-edited Creeps by Night in dustjacket — after years of having it as a Grail Item on … Continue reading
Posted in Dash
Tagged Autographs, Black Mask, Book Collecting, Brian Leno, Cap Shaw, Creeps by Night, J. Paul Suter, Terry Zobeck
Sinister Cinema: Gaudy Wilmerian Patter
Pulps in the Movies! On Sale Every Wednesday! In his exciting series renowned pulp expert John Locke has hit them short and sweet, the slam-bam thanks for holding a pulp, m’am posts. He’s gone back into the silent era. He’s … Continue reading
Posted in Dash, Film, Lit
Tagged Black Mask, Bogie, Cap Shaw, Elisha Cook Jr., Grand Central Murder, John Locke, MGM, Oscar, Paul Cain, Peter Ruric, Pulps in the Movies, Tom Conway, Van Heflin, Warner Brothers, Wilmer Cook
Hammett Takes on the Writing Racket, by John Locke
Mean Streets readers get a Christmas Treat this year from no less than the pulp authority John Locke, doing a deep-dive into the origins of Hammett’s career as a writer. John made a cool discovery in the forgotten trade magazines … Continue reading
Hammett: And Lovecraft
Whoa. Friday the 13th. Time to get a little eldritch and unspeakable for Biography Month. . . . And unspeaking of H. P. Lovecraft, I admit I’m just as interested in the Could Have Beens of a writer’s life as the Plain … Continue reading
Posted in Dash, Lit, REH
Tagged "Conan the Argonaut", Black Mask, Cap Shaw, Farnsworth Wright, Including Murder, Lovecraft, Pulps, Raymond Chandler, The Cimmerian, Weird Tales
Hammett: Coining “The Continental Op”
Was it Cap Shaw? Was it some unheralded editorial assistant? Terry Zobeck plunged into his Black Mask collection to check on who first used the coinage “The Continental Op” to describe Hammett’s short fat Frisco sleuth. That’s with a capital … Continue reading
Posted in Dash, Frisco, Lit, News
Tagged "Death and Company", "Pick-Up", "The Farewell Murder", "The Whosis Kid", Black Mask, Cap Shaw, Frederic Dannay, Including Murder, Pulps, Terry Zobeck, The Dain Curse
Hammett: Including Murder
A few months back Evan Lewis of Davy Crockett’s Almanack let me know he was drifting into town, so I lined up a day where I could show him and his wife as many of the lost byways, precipice gradiants, … Continue reading
Posted in Dash, Frisco, Lit, REH, Willeford
Tagged "Bodies Piled Up", "Night Shots", "The Gatewood Caper", 620 Eddy, Black Mask, Blood and Thunder, Cap Shaw, Clues, Dave Lewis, Donald Wandrei, E. R. Hagemann, Evan Lewis, Frederick Nebel, Howard Wandrei, Humanities Research Center, Including Murder, John D. MacDonald, Leslie Charteris, Lester Dent, Lillian Hellman, Pulps, pure texts, Robert S. Powell, Terry Zobeck, Tony Hillerman, Will Murray
Hammett: A General Disclaimer for Future Use
About two years ago now I finally got to Butte, Montana and environs, and knocked myself out roaming up and down those mean streets, checking for buildings that date from the Hammett era (and there are a lot of buildings standing from the … Continue reading
Posted in Dash
Tagged Butte, Cap Shaw, Dennis Dooley, Peter Wolfe, Red Harvest, Rhino Thompson, Walkerville
Hammett: “Dan Odams”
Terry Zobeck returns with another Guest Blog detailing the edits Frederic Dannay made as he gathered Hammett’s short stories into a series of paperbacks over half a century ago — editorial cuts and changes which have been perpetuated in editions of … Continue reading
Posted in Dash, Lit
Tagged "The Man Who Killed Dan Odams", Black Mask, Cap Shaw, Frederic Dannay, pure texts, Terry Zobeck, Zobeck Series One
Hammett: More on “Death”
Prompted by Terry Zobeck’s post on “Death and Company,” I pulled out my Dell Mapback edition of The Return of the Continental Op and checked through all his corrections. Took a little bit of work, since Terry’s page and line numbers refer to … Continue reading
Posted in Dash, Frisco, Lit, News, Tour
Tagged "Death and Company", "Mike Alec or Rufus", "The Creeping Siamese", "The Farewell Murder", "The Thin Man", "Women Politics and Murder", 408 Turk, 620 Eddy, 891 Post, 895 Post, Bill Arney, Black Mask, Cap Shaw, Dell Mapbacks, Frederic Dannay, Hammett Tour Book, Pru Whitfield, Pulps, pure texts, Terry Zobeck, The Glass Key, The Return of the Continental Op
