Good point. I bought an annotated version of The Big Sleep some years ago, and I was amazed at how much the footnotes helped. Not that I've ever found Chandler's prose difficult. But then, that dude was never your typical Pulp writer either.

I settled on one story from Love Story Illustrated, one from Weird Tales, and one from Amazing Stories, all preceded by a lecture and some guidance on how to read them effectively. We'll be reading and comparing a Nancy Drew book with a Chandler sort later on to talk about mystery as a genre.