Dashiell Hammett
American writer (1894–1961)
Samuel Dashiell Hammett ( duh-SHEEL HAM-it; May 27, 1894 – January 10, 1961) was an American writer of hard-boiled detective novels and short stories. He was also a screenwriter and political activist. Among the characters he created are Sam Spade (The Maltese Falcon), Nick and Nora Charles (The Thin Man), The Continental Op (Red Harvest and The Dain Curse) and the comic strip character Secret Agent X-9.
Hammett is regarded as one of the very best Mystery fiction-mystery writers. In his obituary in The New York Times, he was described as "the dean of the... 'hard-boiled' school of detective fiction." Time included Hammett's 1929 novel Red Harvest on its list of the 100 best English-language novels published between 1923 and 2005. In 1990, the Crime Writers' Association picked three of his five novels for their list of The Top 100 Crime Novels of All Time. Five years later, The Maltese Falcon placed second on The Top 100 Mystery Novels of All Time as selected by the Mystery Writers of America; Red Harvest, The Glass Key and The Thin Man were also on the list. His novels and stories also had a significant influence on mystery films, including the style that came to be known as film noir.
Early life
Hammett was born near Great Mills on the "Hopewell and Aim" farm in Saint Mary's County, Maryland, to Richard Thomas Hammett and his wife Anne Bond Dashiell.
The public source identifies “Dashiell Hammett” as american writer (1894–1961). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Dashiell, Hammett and American.
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The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q186335. VIAF identifies the subject as 73854531. The Library of Congress control number is n80016943. 4 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1894, 1961, 1929 and 1923.
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This entry incorporates text from “Dashiell Hammett” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.