Estate / Collection: The Jean Vounder-Davis Collection of Raymond Chandler

CHANDLER, RAYMOND

Raymond Chandler's Olivetti Studio 44 Typewriter. A tan, full-size portable Olivetti Studio 44 typewriter, manufactured circa 1953 and acquired by Chandler shortly thereafter, held in its red original travel case with handle, the 44-key keyboard with keys likely special ordered by Chandler to include the foreign accent marks on the far right including a "caret" (Excellent with languages, Chandler frequently wrote in French). Some light wear to the typewriter which has not been tested for full functionality; the cover detached at hinges, other wear to case. Offered with a red and black ribbon acquired later.

Raymond Chandler's Olivetti Studio 44 Typewriter on which he wrote his 1957 novel, Playback.

While Chandler had previously owned an Underwood, he was quite pleased with his new Olivetti, writing: "I am apt to get up around 4am, take a mild drink of Scotch and water and start hammering at this lovely Olivetti 44, which is far superior to anything we turn out in America. It is a heavy portable and put together like an Italian racing car, and you mustn't judge it from my typing" (Raymond Chandler, 21 May 1955). Clearly, Chandler took his typewriter seriously and used it nearly every day, preferring blue ribbons to traditional black. This is the typewriter Chandler had in his possession at the time he wrote Playback. It is unknown exactly when Chandler acquired the typewriter, but it may have been upon his first trip to England following the death of his wife Cissy, and the depressed period that followed, in mid-1955.

Biographer Tom Hiney noted that "Chandler spoke Spanish. As late as 1956, he had his Olivetti typewriter customized to incorporate Spanish accents, so that his Mexican gangsters could insult Marlowe in their native tongue” (Tom Hiney, Raymond Chandler: A Biography, 1997, p. 286). It does not seem Chandler had this typewriter at the time he wrote The Long Goodbye (published 1953) but it was within that book that Chandler introduced Mexican locales and a Chilean housekeeper who banters with Marlowe in Spanish. The act of writing was also on Chandler's mind when writing The Long Goodbye which centers on a writer who seems a thinly veiled portrait of Chandler himself: "He wrote letters to himself. He wrote and wrote and wrote. Drunk or sober he hit that typewriter. Some of it is wild, some of it is kind of funny, and some of it is sad. The guy had something on his mind. He wrote all around it but he never quite touched it" (Raymond Chandler, The Long Goodbye). Besides this usage for the foreign language keys, Chandler also corresponded with many people in England and could speak and write in French.

A rare opportunity to acquire the typewriter used by Raymond Chandler, one of the 20th century's most important detective novelists, screenwriters, and short story authors.