Dashiell Hammett was born in St. Mary's County,
Maryland, in 1894, and grew up in Philadelphia and Baltimore.
He left school at fourteen and held many jobs thereafter- messenger boy,
newsboy, clerk, timekeeper, yardman, machine operator, and stevedore.
Eventually he became an operative for the Pinkerton Detective Agency.
His detective career was interrupted by World War 1, in which Hammett
served as a sergeant and contracted TB. When he was finally discharged from
the last of several hospitals, he resumed detective work. Subsequently he
turned to writing, and in the late 1920's he became the unquestioned master
of detective fiction in America.During World War 2, by this time in his late forties, he served as a sergeant in the Army in Alaska for over two years, although how a forty-eight year old with scarred lungs ever got back in the army has never been explained. During the 'Red' scare he was jailed for refusing to testify before the House Un-American Committee. He died in 1961.
See "Dashiell Hammett - A Life" by Diane Johnson. Random House - 1983.
"Hammett - A Life on the Edge" by William Nolan. Congdon and Weed- 1983.
"Selected Letters - Dashiell Hammett" . Counterpoint Press- 2001.