On this day in 1959, Raymond Chandler passed away at the age of 71. Chandler became an author after losing his job at an oil company during the Great Depression of the 1930s. He is regarded as a founder of the hard-boiled school of detective fiction, along with Dashiell Hammett and James M. Cain.
At least three of Chandler's novels are regarded as masterpieces: Farewell, My Lovely (1940), The Little Sister (1949), and The Long Goodbye (1953). Farewell, My Lovely contains one of my favorite one-line descriptions in all of literature: Chandler describes a woman so beautiful she could "make a bishop kick a hole in a stained-glass window."