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Perry Mason by Erle Stanley Gardner

About Perry Mason

Erle Stanley Gardner was an American lawyer but he is best known for creating the fictional attorney Perry Mason, a criminal defense lawyer who appeared in at least 84 novels and 4 short stories, all featuring a client being charged with murder. The books were the seedbed for the long running (9 seasons) TV show featuring Raymond Burr in the titular role, and there was also a series of B-films in the mid 1930s:

  1. The Case of the Howling Dog - 1934 - with Warren William as Mason
  2. The Case of the Curious Bride - 1935 - with Warren William as Mason
  3. The Case of the Lucky Legs - 1935 - with Warren William as Mason
  4. The Case of the Velvet Claws - 1936 - with Warren William as Mason
  5. The Case of the Black Cat - 1936 - with Ricardo Cortez as Mason
  6. The Case of the Stuttering Bishop - 1937 - with Donald Woods as Mason

Thirty TV movies were made between 1985 and 1995 featuring Burr again as Mason, and after Burr died in 1993, Paul Sorvino and Hal Holbrook starred in the final four telefilms from 1993 to 1995. In 2020 an adaptation of Perry Mason was radically changed for a series of episodes that appeared on HBO.

Gardner derived the name "Perry Mason" from the Youth's Companion magazine, a publication he read as a child, which was published by the Perry Mason Company.

After Gardner's death, two official "pastiche" Perry Mason novels were authorized by his estate and written by Thomas Chastain, The Case of Too Many Murders (1989) and The Case of the Burning Bequest (1990)

About Erle Stanley Gardner 1889-1970

Gardner was born in Malden, Massachusetts, but grew up in California. He attended one year at Valparaiso University in Indiana then returned to California to study law. He was admitted to the bar in 1911 then opened his own law practice in Merced, then in 1915 he joined the law firm of Frank Orr in Ventura.

In addition to his legal career, Gardner began writing pulp fiction stories for magazines in the 1920s, with his first story, The Police in the House, was published in June 1921 in Breezy magazine.

The publication of his first Perry Mason novel The Case of the Velvet Claws in 1933 became a best seller, and was subsequently followed by 81 more books. In the course of his writing career Gardner also wrote mysteries and westerns. The final Erle Stanley Gardner Perry Mason story was posthumously piblished in 1973 titled The Case of the Postponed Murder.

Perry Mason Books discussed:

Perry Mason: The Case of the Deadly Toy (1961 Edition)

Perry Mason: Case of the Grinning Gorilla (1956 Edition)

Perry Mason: The Case of the Dubious Bridegroom

Perry Mason: The Case of the Glamerous Ghost (1962 edition)

Perry Mason: The Case of the Glamerous Ghost (1958 edition)

List of the Perry Mason Novels by Erle Stanley Garder

  1. The Case of the Velvet Claws (1933)
  2. The Case of the Sulky Girl (1933)
  3. The Case of the Lucky Legs (1934)
  4. The Case of the Howling Dog (1934)
  5. The Case of the Curious Bride (1934)
  6. The Case of the Counterfeit Eye (1935)
  7. The Case of the Sleepwalker's Niece (1936)
  8. The Case of the Stuttering Bishop (1936)
  9. The Case of the Dangerous Dowager (1937)
  10. The Case of the Lame Canary (1937)
  11. The Case of the Shoplifter's Shoe (1938)
  12. The Case of the Substitute Face (1938)
  13. The Case of the Rolling Bones (1939)
  14. The Case of the Baited Hook (1940)
  15. The Case of the Silent Partner (1940)
  16. The Case of the Angry Mourner (1941)
  17. The Case of the Crooked Candle (1944)
  18. The Case of the Double Talk (1946)
  19. The Case of the Drowning Duck (1947)
  20. The Case of the Empty Tin (1941)
  21. The Case of the Footloose Doll (1950)
  22. The Case of the Gilded Lily (1950)
  23. The Case of the Half-Wakened Wife (1953)
  24. The Case of the Hesitant Hostess (1953)
  25. The Case of the Moth-Eaten Mink (1952)
  26. The Case of the Perjured Parrot (1939)
  27. The Case of the Phantom Fortune (1947)
  28. The Case of the Rolling Wheels (1949)
  29. The Case of the Singing Skirt (1959)
  30. The Case of the Spurious Spinster (1958)
  31. The Case of the Substitute Murderer (1961)
  32. The Case of the Sunbather's Diary (1962)
  33. The Case of the Terrified Typist (1956)
  34. The Case of the Troubled Trustee (1965)
  35. The Case of the Turning Tide (1962)
  36. The Case of the Two-Faced Turnabout (1964)
  37. The Case of the Waylaid Wolf (1959)

Case of the Glamerous Ghost 1958

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