70 lines on both sides of a single sheet of blue letterhead, signed "Ray" on the second page. 11x8½.

Interesting and important letter from the great "hard-boiled" detective fiction writer to his longtime friend and literary agent H.N. Swanson, essentially relieving Swanson of many of his duties, for Chandler has "made my English agent, Mrs. Helga Green, Helga Greene Literary Agency...my agent worldwide except for motion picture sales, if any, to American companies and TV as covered by the contract with Goodman-Todson... Naturally I will leave TV to you..." Chandler had a romantic attachment with Mrs. Greene, stimulating him during a time of depression, and they collaborated on several literary projects. "As an agent Helga has a number of great advantages... To give you an idea of how clever she is, I want to right [sic] plays for the English theatre because they have forty active theatres in London and will give a play a chance... Well, one day at lunch I started to spitball a play and she joined in with me, and during lunch and about an hour afterwards we got a plot, motivations, characters, two sets only, about half a dozen actors, three principal and one almost principal..." Chandler hasn't abandoned Swanson altogether, for "I'll have a Marlowe story finished by April 1st and you will, I suppose, go through the usual routine of not selling it to a film company, but you will probably sell it to TV, at least." After noting that he planned to move to England, and telling of a scheme to avoid the high taxes their, he finishes with two four-line clerihews and a rather dirty limerick: "A lovely young lady named Jean/ Is dainty and tender and clean/ Though her legs I adored/ I always deplored/ That I could never get in between." There are a number of typographical errors, and Chandler has corrected eight of them in ink. Swanson, the recipient, has written at the top of the first page "Ed, Return to me." There are a number of small pinholes at the top left corner of the sheet.