Photo: AP / TT
Sample of authors
Hammett, Dashiell
American detective writer, born in St. Mary's County in Maryland. He grew up in Baltimore where his family moved when he was seven years old. Dashiell Hammett dropped out of school when thirteen and got on with odd jobs before ending up a private detective at Pinkertons. He worked as a detective primarily in San Francisco and then used his experiences in his novels. During the First World War,...
Photo: Quim Llenas/Cover/Getty Images (2006)
Sample of authors
Symons, Julian
Julian Gustave Symons was a British author and critic born in London, where he spent part of his life. His mother was English and his father a Russian Jew, a stern Victorian patriarch who gave his son little or no encouragement. Symons developed such a severe stammer in childhood that he was sent to a succession of state schools for retarded children. He was close to his twelve years older...