Erle Stanley Gardner
Erle Stanley Gardner (July 17, 1889 – March 11, 1970) was an American author and lawyer, best known for the Perry Mason series of legal detective stories, but he wrote numerous other novels and shorter pieces and also a series of nonfiction books, mostly narrations of his travels through Baja California and other regions in Mexico.
Erle Stanley Gardner
July 17, 1889
Malden, Massachusetts, U.S.[1]
March 11, 1970 (aged 80)
Temecula, California, U.S.
A. A. Fair, Carl Franklin Ruth, Carleton Kendrake, Charles M. Green, Charles J. Kenny, Della Street, Edward Leaming, Grant Holiday, Kyle Corning, Les Tillray, Robert Parr, Stephen Caldwell
Lawyer, writer
- Palo Alto High School (1909)
- Valparaiso University School of Law (1 month)
Detective fiction, true crime, travel writing
- Grand Master Award,
Mystery Writers of America - Edgar Award
1
The best-selling American author of the 20th century at the time of his death, Gardner also published under numerous pseudonyms, including A. A. Fair, Carl Franklin Ruth, Carleton Kendrake, Charles M. Green, Charles J. Kenny, Edward Leaming, Grant Holiday, Kyle Corning, Les Tillray, Robert Parr, Stephen Caldwell, and once as the Perry Mason character Della Street ("The Case of the Suspect Sweethearts"). Three stories were published as Anonymous ("A Fair Trial", "Part Music and Part Tears", and "You Can't Run Away from Yourself" aka "The Jazz Baby").
Gardner's other works[edit]
Beginning in 1937 with the novel The D. A. Calls It Murder, Gardner wrote a companion series reversing the format of the Mason books. The protagonist was the resolute district attorney Doug Selby, battling in court against devious attorney Alphonse Baker Carr. Prosecutor Selby is portrayed as a courageous and imaginative crime solver; his antagonist Carr is a wily shyster whose clients are invariably "as guilty as hell."
In 1939, under the pen name A. A. Fair, Gardner launched a series of novels about the private detective firm Cool and Lam.
After World War II Gardner also published a few short stories for the "glossies" (magazines) such as Collier's, Sports Afield, and Look,[20] but most of his postwar magazine contributions were nonfiction articles on travel, Western history, and forensic science. Gardner's readership was a broad and international one, including the English novelist Evelyn Waugh, who in 1949 called Gardner the best living American writer.[21][22] He also created characters for various radio programs, including Christopher London (1950), starring Glenn Ford, and A Life in Your Hands (1949–1952).[16]
Personal life[edit]
In 1912, Gardner wed Natalie Frances Talbert (July 16, 1885 – February 26, 1968). Their only child, Natalie Grace Gardner[9] (January 25, 1913 — February 29, 2004), was born in Ventura, California. Gardner and his wife separated in the early 1930s, but did not divorce, and in fact their marriage lasted 56 years, until Natalie's death in 1968. After that, Gardner married his secretary, Agnes "Jean" Bethell[24] (née Walter; May 19, 1902 – December 5, 2002), the daughter of Ida Mary Elizabeth Walter (née Itrich; December 24, 1880 – March 3, 1961).
Through his daughter, Gardner had two grandchildren: Valerie Joan Naso (née McKittrick; August 19, 1941 – November 12, 2007) and Alan G. McKittrick.
Gardner's widow died in 2002, aged 100, in San Diego. She was a member of Jehovah's Witnesses. She was survived by her brother, Norman Walter.
Death and legacy[edit]
Gardner died of cancer, diagnosed in the late 1960s,[25] on March 11, 1970, at his ranch in Temecula.[9][26] At the time of his death, he was the best-selling American writer of the 20th century.[9] His death followed by five days that of William Hopper, who played private detective Paul Drake in the Perry Mason TV series. Gardner was cremated and his ashes scattered over his beloved Baja California peninsula.[14]: 305 The ranch, known as Rancho del Paisano at the time, was sold after his death, then resold in 2001 to the Pechanga Indians, renamed Great Oak Ranch, and eventually absorbed into the Pechanga reservation.
The Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin holds Gardner's manuscripts, art collection, and personal effects. From 1972 to 2010, the Ransom Center featured a full-scale reproduction of Gardner's study that displayed original furnishings, personal memorabilia, and artifacts.[27] The space and a companion exhibition were dismantled, but a panoramic view of the study is available online.[28]
In 2003, a new school in the Temecula Valley Unified School District was named Erle Stanley Gardner Middle School.[29][30]
In December 2016, Hard Case Crime published The Knife Slipped, a Bertha Cool–Donald Lam mystery, which had been lost for 75 years. Written in 1939 as the second entry in the Cool and Lam series, the book was rejected at the time by Gardner's publisher.[31] Published for the first time in 2016 as a trade paperback and ebook, the work garnered respectful reviews.[32][33] In 2017, Hard Case Crime followed the publication of The Knife Slipped with a reissued edition of Turn On the Heat, the book Gardner wrote to replace The Knife Slipped, and published a new edition of The Count of Nine in October 2018.[34]
Cultural references[edit]
An unspecified article that Gardner wrote for True magazine is referred to by William S. Burroughs in his 1959 novel, Naked Lunch.[35]
Gardner's name is well-known among avid crossword puzzle solvers, because his first name contains an unusual series of common letters, starting and ending with the most common letter of the English alphabet, and because few other famous people have that name. As of January 2012, he is noted for having the highest ratio (5.31) of mentions in the New York Times crossword puzzle to mentions in the rest of the newspaper among all other people since 1993.[36]
In 2001, Huell Howser Productions, in association with KCET, Los Angeles, featured Gardner's Temecula Rancho del Paisano in California's Gold. The 30-minute program is available as a VHS videorecording.[37]