Long Fiction:
The Case of the Velvet Claws, 1933
The Case of the Sulky Girl, 1933
The Case of the Lucky Legs, 1934
The Case of the Howling Dog, 1934
The Case of the Curious Bride, 1934
The Clue of the Forgotten Murder, 1935 (as Carleton Kendrake)
This Is Murder, 1935 (as Charles J. Kenny)
The Case of the Counterfeit Eye, 1935
The Case of the Caretaker’s Cat, 1935
The Case of the Sleepwalker’s Niece, 1936
The Case of the Stuttering Bishop, 1936
The Case of the Dangerous Dowager, 1937
The Case of the Lame Canary, 1937
The D.A. Calls It Murder, 1937
The Case of the Substitute Face, 1938
The Case of the Shoplifter’s Shoe, 1938
The D.A. Holds a Candle, 1938
Murder up My Sleeve, 1938
The Bigger They Come, 1939 (as A. A. Fair)
The D.A. Draws a Circle, 1939
The Case of the Perjured Parrot, 1939
The Case of the Rolling Bones, 1939
The D.A. Goes to Trial, 1940
Turn on the Heat, 1940 (as Fair)
Gold Comes in Bricks, 1940 (as Fair)
The Case of the Baited Hook, 1940
The Case of the Silent Partner, 1940
Spill the Jackpot, 1941 (as Fair)
The Case of the Haunted Husband, 1941
The Case of the Empty Tin, 1941
The Case of the Turning Tide, 1941
Double or Quits, 1941 (as Fair)
The D.A. Cooks a Goose, 1942
Owls Don’t Blink, 1942 (as Fair)
Bats Fly at Dusk, 1942 (as Fair)
The Case of the Drowning Duck, 1942
The Case of the Careless Kitten, 1942
Cats Prowl at Night, 1943 (as Fair)
The Case of the Smoking Chimney, 1943
The D.A. Calls a Turn, 1944
The Case of the Buried Clock, 1943
The Case of the Drowsy Mosquito, 1943
Give ’em the Ax, 1944 (as Fair)
The Case of the Crooked Candle, 1944
The Case of the Black-Eyed Blonde, 1944
The Case of the Golddigger’s Purse, 1945
The Case of the Half-Wakened Wife, 1945
Crows Can’t Count, 1946 (as Fair)
The D.A. Breaks a Seal, 1946
The Case of the Backward Mule, 1946
The Case of the Borrowed Brunette, 1946
Two Clues, 1947
The Case of the Fan Dancer’s Horse, 1947
The Case of the Lazy Lover, 1947
Fools Die on Friday, 1947 (as Fair)
The D.A. Takes a Chance, 1948
The Case of the Lonely Heiress, 1948
The Case of the Vagabond Virgin, 1948
The Case of the Dubious Bridegroom, 1949
Bedrooms Have Windows, 1949 (as Fair)
The D.A. Breaks an Egg, 1949
The Case of the Cautious Coquette, 1949
The Case of the Musical Cow, 1950
The Case of the Negligent Nymph, 1950
The Case of the One-Eyed Witness, 1950
The Case of the Fiery Fingers, 1951
The Case of the Angry Mourners, 1951
The Case of the Moth-Eaten Mink, 1952
Top of the Heap, 1952 (as Fair)
The Case of the Grinning Gorilla, 1952
The Case of the Hesitant Hostess, 1953
The Case of the Green-Eyed Sister, 1953
Some Women Won’t Wait, 1953 (as Fair)
The Case of the Fugitive Nurse, 1954
The Case of the Runaway Corpse, 1954
The Case of the Restless Redhead, 1954
The Case of the Glamorous Ghost, 1955
The Case of the Sun Bather’s Diary, 1955
The Case of the Nervous Accomplice, 1955
Beware the Curves, 1956 (as Fair)
The Case of the Terrified Typist, 1956
The Case of the Demure Defendant, 1956
The Case of the Gilded Lily, 1956
The Case of the Lucky Loser, 1957
You Can Die Laughing, 1957 (as Fair)
Some Slips Don’t Show, 1957 (as Fair)
The Case of the Screaming Woman, 1957
The Case of the Daring Decoy, 1957
The Case of the Long-Legged Models, 1958
The Count of Nine, 1958 (as Fair)
The Case of the Foot-Loose Doll, 1958
The Case of the Calendar Girl, 1958
The Case of the Deadly Toy, 1959
The Case of the Mythical Monkeys, 1959
The Case of the Singing Skirt, 1959
Pass the Gravy, 1959 (as Fair)
Kept Women Can’t Quit, 1960 (as Fair)
The Case of the Waylaid Wolf, 1960
The Case of the Duplicate Daughter, 1960
The Case of the Shapely Shadow, 1960
The Case of the Spurious Spinster, 1961
The Case of the Bigamous Spouse, 1961
Bachelors Get Lonely, 1961 (as Fair)
Shills Can’t Cash Chips, 1961 (as Fair)
Try Anything Once, 1962 (as Fair)
The Case of the Reluctant Model, 1962
The Case of the Blonde Bonanza, 1962
The Case of the Ice-Cold Hands, 1962
The Case of the Mischievous Doll, 1963
The Case of the Step-daughter’s Secret, 1963
The Case of the Amorous Aunt, 1963
Fish or Cut Bait, 1963 (as Fair)
Up for Grabs, 1964 (as Fair)
The Case of the Daring Divorcee, 1964
The Case of the Phantom Fortune, 1964
The Case of the Horrified Heirs, 1964
The Case of the Troubled Trustee, 1965
The Case of the Beautiful Beggar, 1965
Cut Thin to Win, 1965 (as Fair)
Widows Wear Weeds, 1966 (as Fair)
The Case of the Worried Waitress, 1966
The Case of the Queenly Contestant, 1967
Traps Need Fresh Bait, 1967
The Case of the Careless Cupid, 1968
The Case of the Fabulous Fake, 1969
All Grass Isn’t Green, 1970 (as Fair)
The Case of the Fenced-in Woman, 1972
The Case of the Postponed Murder, 1973
Short Fiction:
The Case of the Murderer’s Bride, and Other Stories, 1969
The Case of the Crimson Kiss, 1971
The Case of the Crying Swallow, and Other Stories, 1971
The Case of the Irate Witness, 1972
The Amazing Adventures of Lester Leith, 1981
Nonfiction:
The Land of Shorter Shadows, 1948
The Court of Last Resort, 1952
Neighborhood Frontiers, 1954
The Case of the Boy Who Wrote “The Case of the Missing Clue” with Perry Mason, 1959
Hunting the Desert Whale, 1960
Hovering over Baja, 1961
The Hidden Heart of Baja, 1962
The Desert Is Yours, 1963
The World of Water: Exploring the Sacramento Delta, 1964
Hunting Lost Mines by Helicopter, 1965
Off the Beaten Track in Baja, 1967
Gypsy Days on the Delta, 1967
Mexico’s Magic Square, 1968
Drifting Down the Delta, 1969
Host with the Big Hat, 1970
Cops on Campus and Crime in the Streets, 1970
Whispering Sands: Stories of Gold Fever and the Western Desert, 1981
Erle Stanley Gardner was a true Renaissance man. In addition to being a best-selling novelist, he was a legendary trial lawyer, a talented wildlife photographer, an avid sportsman, and an enthusiastic world traveler who spoke fluent Chinese. A workaholic and a perfectionist, he was described by those who knew him well as cantankerous.
Gardner was born in Malden, Massachusetts, on July 17, 1889. The son of a gold-mining engineer, Gardner spent his youth in Oregon, California, and Alaska’s Klondike. As a teenager, he dabbled in professional boxing. He enrolled at Valparaiso University in Indiana, hoping to study law, but was expelled after just a few weeks for punching a professor. Gardner then worked as a typist in a law firm. In his spare time he read law books, and in 1911 he passed the California bar examination at age twenty-one.
He joined a law practice in Oxnard, California, where he won acclaim for his vigorous defense of indigent Chinese and Mexican clients. Before long the up-and-coming lawyer fell in love with Natalie Talbert, a secretary in his law office. They eloped on April 9, 1912, and a year later their daughter, Grace, was born. By 1935, the marriage had floundered; however, neither Gardner nor his wife sought a divorce, and they remained on amicable terms. For years Natalie and Grace lived in a house in Oxnard while Gardner resided down the street in a nearby apartment.
Despite his relish of “the rough-and-tumble courtroom fight,” Gardner did not find the legal profession very lucrative, and in the early 1920’s he began writing fiction in his spare time. He sold his first story, “Nellie’s Naughty Nightie,” to the pulp magazine Breezy Stories. In 1932, he wrote to the publishing firm of William Morrow and Company in New York and proposed a series of mysteries. Instead of the hard-boiled private eyes made popular by authors such as Dashiell Hammett, his protagonist would be a crime-solving attorney. “I want to make my hero a fighter,” the Gardner wrote. The following year William Morrow published Gardner’s first novel-length work, The Case of the Velvet Claws, featuring the lawyer Perry Mason, which spawned one of the most phenomenally successful mystery series of all time. Gardner soon gave up his day job to devote himself exclusively to writing. Ultimately, he completed eighty-six Perry Mason mysteries. He had amazing self-discipline, producing more than a million words annually. At first, he typed all these words himself; later, he employed six full-time secretaries to transcribe his novels.
In each of the Perry Mason mysteries, Mason must defend a client charged with murder. The client is always entwined in suspicious circumstances that make him or her appear guilty of the crime. Mason is aided by his loyal and devoted secretary, Della Street, and his private detective friend, Paul Drake. Usually Mason does not solve the crime until a climactic courtroom scene.
Many of Mason’s cases were actually based on the author’s experiences as a trial lawyer. Gardner took great care to ensure that all of the details in his books were factually correct. He even went so far as to purchase a new gun for each mystery that he wrote.
Although the Perry Mason mysteries brought Gardner fame and fortune, even he did not regard them as literary masterpieces. He did not devote a lot of space to characterization and description, preferring instead to focus on fast pacing, intricate plotting, and scintillating dialogue. “I have no aptitude as a writer,” Gardner once said. “I don’t consider myself a very good writer. I do consider myself a good plotter. And I consider myself one hell of a good salesman as far as manufacturing merchandise that will sell is concerned.” He did not mind being called a fiction factory or “the Henry Ford of novelists,” references to the assembly-line nature of how his prodigious books were produced. All told, Gardner ended up penning more than seven hundred fictional works during his lifetime. In addition to the Perry Mason series, Gardner wrote twenty-nine novels under the pseudonym A. A. Fair about private eye Donald Lam and nine books about small-town district attorney Doug Selby. There are more than three hundred million copies of his books in print.
In 1957 Gardner maintained creative control when the character of Perry Mason became the basis for a long-running television series. Gardner himself approved the scripts, helped select the actors, and often visited the set. He personally chose the dark-eyed actor Raymond Burr to portray Mason. The series was incredibly popular with the public, running for nine years, and on the last episode of the show Gardner played a judge.
Writing brought Gardner financial independence and the freedom to pursue other interests, particularly travel. He spent months in China and often journeyed to Mexico’s Baja Peninsula. His passion for the outdoors led him to purchase a thousand-acre ranch near Temecula, California, southeast of Los Angeles. Although he was an excellent marksman, Gardner eventually gave up hunting, partly because of his love for animals. A staunch advocate of social justice, he helped found the Court of Last Resort in 1948, which consisted of a group of crime experts and investigators who reinvestigated cases of people who might have been unjustly convicted of crimes. His nonfiction account of the Court of Last Resort’s work won him the 1952 Fact Crime Edgar Allan Poe award from the Mystery Writers of America, another organization he helped create.
In 1968, after Gardner’s wife Natalie died, the seventy-nine-year-old author married his longtime secretary, Jean Bethell. They had only two years of wedded life together before Gardner died of cancer on March 11, 1970. At his funeral, he was eulogized as a “lawyer, author, citizen, and friend who contributed more to the cause of justice than any other man of his generation.”