Hard-boiled fiction is a style of writing that developed in American literature during the early 1900’s. The style emphasizes unsentimental realism, and the narratives often stress sex and violence.
Hard-boiled fiction is typically set in run-down urban locations. An atmosphere of moral corruption and suspicion filters through the stories, which generally involve a crime. As a result, the style has had a major impact on detective stories. The dialogue is usually fast-paced and filled with slang and a cynical wit. Even though the stories frequently deal with crime, hard-boiled authors usually express no moral judgments about the characters or their behavior.
Early hard-boiled fiction was associated with Black Mask, a magazine first published in 1920 that specialized in detective stories. The magazine carried stories by such hard-boiled masters as Paul Cain, Raymond Chandler, and Dashiell Hammett. Classic hard-boiled novels include Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon (1930), Cain’s Fast One (1933), and Chandler’s The Big Sleep (1939). Other important American writers in the style included W. R. Burnett, George Harmon Coxe, and Jim Thompson. The fiction of such American writers as Ernest Hemingway and John Dos Passos reflect some of the qualities of hard-boiled fiction.
The characteristics of the style influenced the American motion-picture style of the 1940’s known as film noir. This style was marked by a brooding atmosphere and many nighttime scenes.
