The Raymond Chandler Papers

"My argument is and has always has been merely that there is no such thing as serious literature, that the survivals of Puritanism in the American mind make all but the most literate people incapable of thinking of literature without reference to what they call significance, and that most of this so-called serious literature or fiction is the most transient stuff in the world; the moment its message is dated, damn quick, it is dead stuff." Raymond Chandler (from a 1949 letter)