Quite simply, Black Mask magazine is the most important Detective fiction magazine ever published, printing the most significant works of Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, and Erle Stanley Gardner, among others over its 20-year life. This facsimile of the September 1929 issue represents Black Mask at its peak with the first installment of The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett, along with stories by Erle Stanley Gardner, Horace McCoy, Frederick Nebel, and Raoul Whitfield.