Dashiell Hammett, The Maltese Falcon, Arion Press, 1983. Fine Limited Edition

Hammett, Dashiell, The Maltese Falcon. San Francisco: Arion Press, 1983. Fine 4to in Fine slipcase, one of 400, 8 ¼” x 10 ¼”, 291 pp. 

Gray cloth with black leather backing, silver titling, and black leather decorative falcon to front panel. Housed in a Fine slipcase. Features forty-six black-and-white photographs of San Francisco Bay Area locations that appear in the narrative, mostly shot around the same time the story takes place with a few more recent photographs provided by California photographer Edmund Shea. Bound by the Schuberth Bookbindery, printed on Byron-Weston Linen Record paper using Bodoni semi-bold and Corvinus medium types. The photo-lithography was by Phelps-Schaefer. 291 pp.

Originally published in 1930, Hammett’s classic detective novel set the bar for morally ambiguous, edgy drama in which the characters are all driven by the illusive, and possibly make believe legend of a jewel-encrusted solid gold artifact. Based on Hammett’s experience as a private investigator, the Sam Spade character featured in four other stories published as a serial in the magazine The Black Mask.