SOURCE: "Raymond Chandler: An Aesthete Discovers the Pulps," in Critical Observations, Ticknor & Fields, 1981, pp. 156-65.

In the following essay, Symons traces stylistic developments in Chandler's works and characterizes the author as a romantic aesthete primarily concerned with the literary quality of his writings.

Fairyland is Everyman's dream of perfection, and changes, dream-like, with the mood of the dreamer. For one it is a scene of virgin, summery Nature undefiled by even the necessary works of man . . . For another it is a champaign, dotted with fine castles, in which live sweet ladies clad in silk, spinning, and singing as they spin, and noble knights who do courteous battle with each other in forest glades; or a region of uncanny magic, haunting music, elves and charmed airs and waters.

That is Raymond Chandler writing in 1912 for The Academy.

The man in the powder-blue suit—which wasn't powder-blue under the lights...