The Long Goodbye is a novel by Raymond Chandler, published in 1953, his sixth novel featuring the private investigator Philip Marlowe. Some critics consider it inferior to The Big Sleep or Farewell,My Lovely, but others rank it as the best of his work. Chandler, in aletter to a friend, called the novel my best book.
The novel is notable for using hard-boiled detective fiction as a vehicle for social criticism and for including autobiographical elements from Chandlers life. It was dramatized for television in 1954 for the anthology series Climax!. In 1955, the novel receivedthe Edgar Award for Best Novel. In 1973, Robert Altman filmed anadaptation set in contemporary Los Angeles, with Elliott Gould asMarlowe. An adaptation of the novel was broadcast by BBC Radio4 on 16 January 1978.