S I T E   M E N U :
The latest Hammett news!
A short biography of
 Dashiell Hammett,
 followed by Frequently
 Asked Questions
“The Complete Works
 of Dashiell Hammett”
A chronology of
 Hammett’s fiction
The Continental Op:
 Hammett’s first hard-
 boiled detective (1923)
The short story collections
Blood Money (1927)

 Red Harvest (1929)

 The Dain Curse (1929)

 The Maltese Falcon (1930)

 The Glass Key (1931)

 The Thin Man (1934)

 The novels in one volume
Woman in the Dark:
 Hammett’s lost novel?
The Maltese Falcon on film

 Hammett’s army days
A photo tour of “Sam Spade’s
 apartment.” (2003)
Dashiell Hammett Place:
 another former Hammett
 residence (2004)

The Flood Building:
 Hammett’s Pinkerton
 Detective office (2004)
The Maltese Falcon’s
 75th anniversary (2005)
Interview with Hammett
 scholar Dr. George J.
 “Rhino” Thompson (2007)
The Dashiell Hammett Suite,
 Hotel Union Square (2008)
The Maltese Falcon prequel:
Spade & Archer (2009)
Interview with
 Hammett biographer
 William F. Nolan (2013)
Books about Hammett
E-mail the
 Dashiell Hammett website
Links to other websites
mikehumbert.com
 homepage
Special thanks to:
 Robert Mailer Anderson
 Bill Arney
 Vince Emery
 Don Herron
 Richard Layman
 Jo Marshall
 Eddie Muller
 Julie Rivett
 and so many others
for their many
contributions to this site.
Entire website ©2003-2014
 By Mike Humbert

THE DAIN CURSE:

THE CONTINENTAL OP TAKES ON A CULT  

After the rampant violence of Red Harvest, the Contintal Op shows a more compassionate side in this weird tale involving family curses, religious cultism, psychosis and drug addiction.

Like Red Harvest, The Dain Curse was originally spread over four issues of Black Mask, between October 1928 and January 1929.  Knopf released it in hardback the following July.  Despite considerable reworking, it remains Hammett’s most disjointed and episodic novel.

In 1978, The Dain Curse was made into a TV miniseries, which was surprisingly faithful to the book, with a few notable exceptions:

  1. The setting was no longer San Francisco.
  2. The Continental Agency was renamed the Dickerson Agency
  3. The nameless, chubby detective was transformed into mustachioed James Coburn, bearing a strong resemblance to Dash Hammett, and calling himself “Hamilton Nash.”

SAMPLES OF VARIOUS EDITIONS

 

NON-ENGLISH EDITION

French edition (details unknown)

 

AUDIO EDITIONS