ALCOHOL IS LIKE LOVE

Chandler suffered from chronic loneliness, depression and alcoholism. The above citation is from "The Long Goodbye" he wrote as his wife was dying from a long illness. Five years later he died.

Chandler was classically educated in Dullwich College near London, England (the college includes an elegant museum of fine arts). After serving in the Canadian Expeditionary Force in France during World War I, he migrated to Los Angeles. While earning a living in a variety of ways, he became an American author of immense stylistic impact and popularizer of crime novels most of which were cinematically adapted. Chandler created the character "Philip Marlowe" as a prototype of a modern "private eye". An example is the 1946 film "The Big Sleep" with Humphrey Bogard as Philip Marlowe.