Title
Black Mask
Coverage
New York
Publisher
Pro-Distributors Publishing Company
Date
September 1929
Subject
Volume 12, number 1
Description
Black Mask was begun by H.L. Mencken and George Jean Nathan in 1920 to raise money to support publication of their literary magazine, Smart Set. After it was sold for a $12,000 profit after six months, Black Mask went on to pioneer hard-boiled detective fiction with stories by Carroll John Daly, Dashiell Hammett, and Raymond Chandler. This issue introduced Sam Spade in Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon.