Uploaded August 2013 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
"The creation of the private eye in Black Mask magazine remains the most important development in the history of mystery fiction in America," explains Otto Penzler of MysteriousPress.com. In this video, Penzler takes us back to the 1920s, to the creation of the now-iconic Black Mask magazine, where mystery greats including Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, and Carroll John Daly got their start. With an atmosphere evoking that time and place, this video proves that the tough-guy detectives of the hard-boiled mysteries of the 1920s and '30s are not a thing of the past.
"The creation of the private eye in Black Mask magazine remains the most important development in the history of mystery fiction in America," explains Otto Penzler of MysteriousPress.com. In this video, Penzler takes us back to the 1920s, to the creation of the now-iconic Black Mask magazine, where mystery greats including Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, and Carroll John Daly got their start. With an atmosphere evoking that time and place, this video proves that the tough-guy detectives of the hard-boiled mysteries of the 1920s and '30s are not a thing of the past.
