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[INCOMPLETE SINCE MAY] Cleanup + New ACEs: Raymond Chandler Books
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11. Previous Edition Cleanup: The Long Goodbye (ISBN 9780394757681)- The description is incorrect. It should read as follows:
Marlowe befriends a down-on-his-luck war veteran with the scars to prove it. Then he finds out that Terry Lennox has a very wealthy nymphomaniac wife, who he’s divorced and remarried and who ends up dead. And now Lennox is on the lam and the cops and a crazy gangster are after Marlowe.
- It should be added to the description that this is an alternate cover edition of the edition created in Entry 12.
===
12. ACE Creation: The Long Goodbye
The ACE should be created with the following information:
TITLE: The Long Goodbye
AUTHOR: Raymond Chandler
ISBN-10: 0394757688
ISBN-13: 9780394757681
ASIN: 0394757688
PUBLISHER: Vintage Crime/Black Lizard
DATE PUBLISHED: November 2022
NUMBER OF PAGES: 379
FORMAT: Paperback
DESCRIPTION:
Private investigator Philip Marlowe befriends Terry Lennox, a war veteran with the emotional and physical scars to prove it. Lennox needs help: his wealthy wife is dead, and people think he’s responsible. Marlowe is happy to lend a hand, but when another tragedy strikes, he finds himself drawn even deeper into the seedy world of criminals and adulterers littering LA’s Idle Valley. With bodies continuing to stack up, the clock is ticking on Marlowe’s quest to uncover the truth.
EDITION LANGUAGE: English
COVER ART: https://images4.penguinrandomhouse.co...
===
13. Previous Edition Cleanup: Playback
This is a bit of a mess. The previous edition of Playback which used the ISBN-10 0394757661 and the ISBN-13 9780394757667, and which I’ll refer to as Green Cover for convenience, only has 0394757661 in the ASIN field. An even older edition, which I’ll refer to as Pink Cover, has both the ISBN-10 and -13 but no ASIN. When creating an ACE, is it possible to migrate ISBNs from two different books onto the one new edition? If not, I’ll need to talk to staff before the ACE can be created, so if staff help is required, please do not do anything in Entry 14 until I can confirm that they fixed the issue.
Links to the two different editions, for convenience:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6... – Pink Cover
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1... – Green Cover
- Pink Cover Edition’s publisher is incorrect. It should just be Vintage Crime, not Vintage Crime/Black Lizard.
- Pink Cover Edition’s publication date is incorrect. The copyright page in the book lists it as August 1988.
- Even though it’s an English-language edition, the Pink Cover Edition has Raymond Chandler’s Chinese author page linked to it. This needs to be removed.
- Pink Cover Edition’s description is incorrect. It should read as follows, transcribed from the back cover:
As Chandler’s last novel opens, Philip Marlowe meets a well-endowed redhead as she disembarks from the Super Chief and leads him to the California coast to solve a tale of big money and, of course, murder.
- Green Cover Edition’s description is incorrect. It should read as follows, taken from the back cover:
In Chandler’s final novel, Marlowe is hired by an influential lawyer he’s never heard of to tail a gorgeous redhead, but decides he prefers to help out the redhead. She’s been acquitted of her alcoholic husband’s murder, but her father-in-law prefers not to take the court’s word for it.
- It should be added to the descriptions of both editions that they are alternate cover editions of the edition created in Entry 14.
===
14. ACE Creation: Playback
The ACE should be created with the following information:
TITLE: Playback
AUTHOR: Raymond Chandler
ISBN-10: 0394757661
ISBN-13: 9780394757667
ASIN: 0394757661
PUBLISHER: Vintage Crime/Black Lizard
DATE PUBLISHED: Either November 2022 or March 2023. Those are the two months that all the other new Chandler editions were published in, but unfortunately the Goodreads bot didn’t automatically create a new edition based on Amazon, and Internet Archive doesn’t have enough coverage of the relevant pages on the publisher’s website or Amazon to let me figure out which one it was. If the librarians know of any other ways to figure it out, feel free.
NUMBER OF PAGES: 166
FORMAT: Paperback
DESCRIPTION:
In Chandler’s final novel, Philip Marlowe is hired by an influential lawyer to tail a mysterious, striking redheaded woman named Eleanor King. For Marlowe, the job seems a bit too good to be true. Soon, however, he learns that wherever this woman goes, trouble follows. As one thing leads to another, Marlowe tumbles headlong into a case far more complicated – and deadly – than he ever could have imagined.
EDITION LANGUAGE: English
COVER ART: https://images1.penguinrandomhouse.co...
===
15. Previous Edition Cleanup: The Simple Art of Murder (ISBN 9780394757650)
- The description is incorrect. It should read as follows, transcribed from the back of the book:
Prefaced by the famous Atlantic Monthly essay of the same name, in which he argues the virtues of the hard-boiled detective novel, this collection, mostly drawn from stories he wrote for the pulps, demonstrates Chandler’s imaginative, entertaining facility with the form.
- The page count is incorrect. It should be 377.
- It should be added to the description that this is an alternate cover edition of the edition created in Entry 16.
===
16. ACE Creation: The Simple Art of Murder
The ACE should be created with the following information:
TITLE: The Simple Art of Murder
AUTHOR: Raymond Chandler
ISBN-10: 0394757653
ISBN-13: 9780394757650
ASIN: 0394757653
PUBLISHER: Vintage Crime/Black Lizard
DATE PUBLISHED: Either November 2022 or March 2023. Those are the two months that all the other new Chandler editions were published in, but unfortunately the Goodreads bot didn’t automatically create a new edition based on Amazon, and Internet Archive doesn’t have enough coverage of the relevant pages on the publisher’s website or Amazon to let me figure out which one it was. If the librarians know of any other ways to figure it out, feel free.
NUMBER OF PAGES: 377
FORMAT: Paperback
DESCRIPTION:
A detective investigating a political hit is hassled by a game warden, an undercover narc accidentally becomes involved in a harebrained extortion scheme, and a chauffeur accused of stealing his employer’s pearls becomes an unlikely sidekick to the man responsible for solving the case. Prefaced by the eponymous essay, in which Chandler argues the virtues of the hard-boiled detective novel, this collection, mostly drawn from stories he wrote for the pulps, demonstrates his imaginative and entertaining facility with the form.
EDITION LANGUAGE: English
COVER ART: https://images1.penguinrandomhouse.co...
===
17. Previous Edition Cleanup: Trouble Is My Business
Again, a bit of a mess. The previous edition of Trouble which used the ISBN-10 0394757645 and the ISBN-13 9780394757643, which I’ll refer to as Gun Cover for convenience, only has 0394757645 in the ASIN field. An even older edition, which I’ll refer to as Man Cover, has both the ISBN-10 and -13 but no ASIN. Once again: When creating an ACE, is it possible to migrate ISBNs from two different books onto the one new edition? If not, I’ll need to talk to staff before the ACE can be created, so if staff help is required, please do not do anything in Entry 18 until I can confirm that they fixed the issue.
Links to the two different editions, for convenience:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5... – Man Cover
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1... – Gun Cover
- The description on the Man Cover Edition is incorrect. It should read as follows, transcribed directly from the back of the book. Yes, it is extremely short. The description is only three sentences long and two of them are praise quotes.
Trouble Is My Business is a collection of four stories, all of them classic Philip Marlowe mysteries.
- The description on the Gun Cover Edition is incorrect. It should read as follows, transcribed directly from the back of the book:
In the four long stories in this collection, Philip Marlowe is hired to protect a rich old guy from a gold digger, runs afoul of crooked politicos, gets a line on some stolen jewels with a reward attached, and stumbles across a murder victim who may be an extortionist.
- The page count on the Gun Cover Edition is incorrect. It should be 214.
- It should be added to the descriptions of both editions that they are alternate cover editions of the edition created in Entry 18.
===
18. ACE Creation: Trouble Is My Business
TITLE: Trouble Is My Business
AUTHOR: Raymond Chandler
ISBN-10: 0394757645
ISBN-13: 9780394757643
ASIN: 0394757645
PUBLISHER: Vintage Crime/Black Lizard
DATE PUBLISHED: March 2024
NUMBER OF PAGES: 214
FORMAT: Paperback
DESCRIPTION:
In these four masterful stories, Philip Marlowe is hired to protect a wealthy old man from a gold digger, runs afoul of crooked politicos, gets a line on some stolen jewels with a hefty reward attached, and stumbles across a murder victim who may or may not be an extortionist. These stories represent all that fans have come to know and love about Raymond Chandler, from the crystal clear, unpretentious prose to the unpredictable breakneck plots to the atmospheric, unforgettable locales.
EDITION LANGUAGE: English
COVER ART: https://images1.penguinrandomhouse.co...
Thank you to the librarians for any and all help with these issues.
Goodreads Librarians Group
Books mentioned in this topic
The Long Goodbye (other topics)The Simple Art of Murder (other topics)
The Big Sleep (other topics)
The High Window (other topics)
The Lady in the Lake (other topics)
More...
As per Goodreads policy, the ISBN for the previous edition needs to be moved to the most recent edition and the older edition marked as an ACE of the new one.
As an additional note: I have been told by librarians that the date listed on the ACE should be the date the edition was actually published. This is something of a problem, because the publisher’s website does not list the actual publication date of each new edition, but the date that the ISBN first entered publication. However, the Goodreads bot created ACEs for the Kindle editions automatically and included the correct dates for these new editions, so I am taking dates from those editions. There are a few that it did not automatically create them for, so we may have to guess.
1. Previous Edition Cleanup: The Big Sleep (ISBN 9780394758282)
- The description is incorrect. It should read as follows, transcribed from the back of the book:
When a dying millionaire hires Philip Marlowe to handle the blackmailer of one of his two troublesome daughters, Marlowe finds himself involved with more than extortion. Kidnapping, pornography, seduction, and murder are just a few of the complications he gets caught up in.
- It should be added to the description that this is an alternate cover edition of the edition created in Entry 2.
===
2. ACE Creation: The Big Sleep
The ACE should be created with the following information:
TITLE: The Big Sleep
AUTHOR: Raymond Chandler
ISBN-10: 0394758285
ISBN-13: 9780394758282
ASIN: 0394758285
PUBLISHER: Vintage Crime/Black Lizard
DATE PUBLISHED: March 2023
NUMBER OF PAGES: 231
FORMAT: Paperback
DESCRIPTION (note: the descriptions on the new ACEs are different from the ones listed on the publisher's website. I have transcribed new ACE descriptions directly from the books themselves):
When old man Sternwood, a dying millionaire, hires Philip Marlowe to expose the blackmailer of one of his troublesome daughters, Marlowe finds himself involved with more than simple extortion. Kidnapping, pornography, and seduction are just a few of the complications standing in the way of completing the task at hand. And just as Marlowe feels he’s getting ahold of the situation, he discovers the first body.
EDITION LANGUAGE: English
COVER ART: https://images2.penguinrandomhouse.co...
===
3. Previous Edition Cleanup: Farewell, My Lovely
This is going to be kind of a mess.
So, there are two previous ACEs of this book I’ll be discussing here. I’ll be calling them the Hand Cover and the Glass Cover for the sake of simplicity. Both are linked below.
Glass Cover: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...
Hand Cover: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9...
The Glass Cover Edition was published in the 1980s, and the Hand Cover Edition was published in the 1990s. The Hand Cover is the more recent edition of the Glass Cover, so the ISBN 97803947585275 should be assigned to the Hand Cover. However, a completely unrelated ISBN (9780394239071) has been assigned to the Hand Cover. I have no idea what this ISBN is. It’s not listed on any publisher website, and the only Goodreads-acceptable source I can find it on is a secondhand Amazon reseller that got the name of the publisher wrong and is selling this unknown edition for around $250 USD, so I don’t think it’s a very trustworthy source. Additionally, I have photographed multiple copies of the Hand Cover Edition, and all of them have the ISBN 97803947585275 assigned to them (if needed, I’ll add these photos in a reply). As such, the ISBN 9780394239071 and the ASIN 0394239075 need to be removed from this edition and possibly reassigned to a different edition. Please let me know how I should proceed with this. If I need to contact staff, please do not take any steps within Entry 4 until I get staff to fix the issue.
Aside from this ISBN mixup, there are a couple other issues to correct.
- The Glass Cover Edition’s description is incorrect. Transcribed directly from the back cover of the book:
Raymond Chandler’s classic novel has Philip Marlowe dealing with the Los Angeles gambling circuit, a murder he stumbles upon, and three very beautiful but potentially deadly women.
- It should be added to the descriptions of both editions that they are alternate cover editions of the edition created in Entry 4.
===
4. ACE Creation: Farewell, My Lovely
The ACE should be created with the following information:
TITLE: Farewell, My Lovely
AUTHOR: Raymond Chandler
ISBN-10: 0394758277
ISBN-13: 9780394758275
ASIN: 0394758277
PUBLISHER: Vintage Crime/Black Lizard
DATE PUBLISHED: March 2023
NUMBER OF PAGES: 292
FORMAT: Paperback
DESCRIPTION:
Detective Philip Marlowe is, despite himself, a sucker for a good sob story. Soon after taking on the more or less routine case of a husband’s vain search for his missing wife, the plot jackknifes and Marlowe is swept along from one smoky bar to another as the stakes get higher by the minute. What follows is a rare tale of jewel thieves, a fortune teller, a handful of murders, and more corruption than your average graveyard. What begins as a search for a missing woman by the end becomes something all the more sinister.
EDITION LANGUAGE: English
COVER ART: https://images1.penguinrandomhouse.co...
===
5. Previous Edition Cleanup: The High Window (ISBN 9780394758268)
- The description is incorrect. It should read as follows (transcribed from the back of the book):
A wealthy Pasadena widow with a mean streak, a missing daughter-in-law with a past, and a gold coin worth a small fortune – the elements don’t quite add up until Marlowe discovers evidence of murder, rape, blackmail, and the worst kind of human exploitation.
- It should be added to the description that this is an alternate cover edition of the edition created in Entry 6.
===
6. ACE Creation: The High Window
TITLE: The High Window
AUTHOR: Raymond Chandler
ISBN-10: 0394758269
ISBN-13: 9780394758268
ASIN: 0394758269
PUBLISHER: Vintage Crime/Black Lizard
DATE PUBLISHED: November 2022
NUMBER OF PAGES: 265
FORMAT: Paperback
DESCRIPTION:
When a wealthy Pasadena widow with a mean streak asks Philip Marlowe to recover the Brasher Doubloon – a rare gold coin missing from her late husband’s collection – things seem straightforward enough. Matters are soon complicated by an unfortunate series of discoveries: the search for the coin keeps turning up bodies. It’s a race against the clock as Marlowe rushes to wrap things up with the police breathing down his neck and the body count rising.
EDITION LANGUAGE: English
COVER ART: https://images3.penguinrandomhouse.co...
===
7. Previous Edition Cleanup: The Lady in the Lake (ISBN 9780394758251)
- It should be added to the description that this is an alternate cover edition of the edition created in Entry 8.
===
8. ACE Creation: The Lady in the Lake
The ACE should be created with the following information:
TITLE: The Lady in the Lake
AUTHOR: Raymond Chandler
ISBN-10: 0394758250
ISBN-13: 9780394758251
ASIN: 0394758250
PUBLISHER: Vintage Crime/Black Lizard
DATE PUBLISHED: March 2023
NUMBER OF PAGES: 266
FORMAT: Paperback
DESCRIPTION:
Philip Marlowe is hired to find Crystal Kingsley, the missing wife of a wealthy businessman. It appears she might have run away to Mexico looking for a quickie divorce. But as Marlowe pursues the case, he stumbles across more than one dead body and realizes that the story is far more complicated than it seems. His journey will take him far from the familiar, gritty streets of Los Angeles to an isolated, lakefront cabin in the mountains, and will reveal more than a few shocking secrets.
EDITION LANGUAGE: English
COVER ART: https://images2.penguinrandomhouse.co...
===
9. Previous Edition Cleanup: The Little Sister (ISBN 9780394757674)
- The description is incorrect. It should read as follows (transcribed from the back of the book):
A movie starlet with a gangster boyfriend and a pair of siblings with a shared secret lure Marlowe into the less-than-glamorous and more-than-a-little dangerous world of Hollywood fame. Chandler’s foray into the industry that dominates the company town that is Los Angeles.
- It should be added to the description that this is an alternate cover edition of the edition created in Entry 10.
===
10. ACE Creation: The Little Sister
TITLE: The Little Sister
AUTHOR: Raymond Chandler
ISBN-10: 039475767X
ISBN-13: 9780394757674
ASIN: 039475767X
PUBLISHER: Vintage Crime/Black Lizard
DATE PUBLISHED: November 2022
NUMBER OF PAGES: 250
FORMAT: Paperback
DESCRIPTION:
Philip Marlowe’s latest client has come all the way from Manhattan, Kansas, with a simple request: help find her missing brother. As is often the case with Marlowe’s jobs, however, matters aren’t quite as simple as they seem. As events unfold, Marlowe comes across famous Hollywood starlets, dangerous gangsters, opportunistic grifters, and more than a few bodies.
EDITION LANGUAGE: English
COVER ART: https://images4.penguinrandomhouse.co...
Continued in the next post.