Order of Philip Marlowe Books
Philip Marlowe is a fictional detective created by American author Raymond Chandler, and was later written by Robert B. Parker and Benjamin Black. The Philip Marlowe series is a hardboiled detective fiction series that actually started out as a series of short stories. Chandler would later cannibalize these stories into the first (and most famous) novel of the series, The Big Sleep. In 1946, The Big Sleep would be adapted into a film directed by Howard Hawks starring Humphrey Bogart as Marlowe. Other actors who would play the character in adaptations were Dick Powell, Robert Montgomery, James Garner, Elliot Gould and Robert Mitchum.
The Philip Marlowe series would begin in 1939 with The Big Sleep. Chandler’s final completed Marlowe novel was Playback in 1958, although he would leave Poodle Springs unfinished. Parker would finish that novel in 1989 and then go on to write Perchance To Dream in 1991 – the only authorized sequel. Below is a list of all of the Philip Marlowe novels in order of when they were originally published (which is also their chronological order):
Publication Order of Philip Marlowe Books
The Big Sleep | (1939) | |
Farewell, My Lovely | (1940) | |
The High Window | (1942) | |
The Lady in the Lake | (1943) | |
The Little Sister | (1949) | |
The Long Goodbye | (1953) | |
Playback | (1958) | |
Poodle Springs | (1989) | |
Perchance to Dream | (1991) | |
The Black-Eyed Blonde | (2014) | |
Only to Sleep | (2018) | |
The Goodbye Coast | (2022) | |
The Second Murderer | (2023) |
Publication Order of Philip Marlowe Collections
Notes: Poodle Springs was finished by Robert B. Parker, while Perchance to Dream was written entirely by Parker. Beginning with The Black-Eyed Blonde, the series is written by Benjamin Black.