Author Raymond Chandler’s first book, The Big Sleep, published in 1939, is hit by publishers with trigger warnings for “out of date language”
Raymond Chandler’s first novel, published in 1939, received a trigger warning from the publisher for its “outdated language.”
Considered one of the greatest crime novels of all time, The Big Sleep is Chandler’s first novel to introduce his character of private investigator Philip Marlowe.
Vintage, a publishing company under Penguin Random House, has now put a note on the book stating its “obsolete language and cultural representations.”
Chandler’s novel is described by the publisher as a story of “a dying millionaire who hires private investigator Philip Marlowe to handle the blackmailer of one of his two troublesome daughters.”
As a result, Marlowe becomes involved in kidnapping, pornography, seduction and murder.
Raymond Chandler’s first novel (pictured in 1954), published in 1939, received a trigger warning from the publisher for its “outdated language”
Pictured is the cover of the Vintage Edition of The Big Sleep, which contains a warning on the front cover
The note inside the novel reads, ‘While these books are excellent works of genre, they are also resolutely of the time and place in which they were written.
“These novels may contain outdated cultural representations and language.
We present these works as originally published The Telegraph.
The publisher acquired the special selection of crime novels after acquiring detective novel publisher Black Lizard to form Vintage Crime/Black Lizard.
The seven titles, described as noir mysteries and available to US customers, are decorated with a small black lizard and a single block color. They all contain a brief warning to readers.
Other novels in the collection include The Postman Always Rings by James M Cain, A Rage in Harlem by Chester Himes, and A Judgment in Stone by Ruth Rendell.
Obviously these special editions are not issued in the UK.
The trigger warning comes a month after Ernest Hemingway’s works were hit with warnings about his “language and attitude.”
Penguin Random House is republishing the works of the author Old Man and the Sea and the latest edition of his 1926 novel The Sun Also Rises states: ‘The decision of the publisher to present it as originally published is not intended as an endorsement of cultural representations or language contained herein.”
Nobel laureate Ernest Hemingway has also been hit with publishers’ trigger warnings about ‘language and attitudes’
Virginia Woolf’s 1927 novel To the Lighthouse (pictured) is now published with a disclaimer about the contents of the book
His short story collection Men Without Women contains a similar warning. The Sun Also Rises is considered one of the best American novels, but it was criticized for anti-Semitic tropes.
Also on the list is Virginia Woolf’s To the lighthouse. Woolf’s semi-autobiographical novel tells the stories of the Ramsay family’s journeys to their summer home on the Isle of Skye in Scotland.
However, a new edition, published by Vintage, will be preceded by a statement explaining that the decision to print the novel in its original form is not an “approval” of the “cultural representations or language” used in Woolf’s book.
Also affected are PG Wodehouse’s works which received a general trigger warning due to concerns that it contains ‘outdated’ social views.
All news releases of Wodehouse’s work will now carry warnings that his novels reflect outdated views.
Vintage was contacted for comment by MailOnline.