(1889-1970) Also wrote as: A. A. Fair
Gardner, creator of Perry Mason, fiction’s most famous criminal attorney, was for many years one of the most popular writers in the world—possibly the most popular—and arguably the most successful writer to graduate from the pulp magazines, to which he contributed prodigiously in the 1920s and 1930s. Gardner’s output was tremendous through his entire writing career, during which period he also kept up careers as a lawyer, businessman, producer, and social activist and legal crusader (founder of the legendary Court of Last Resort, intended to reopen the cases of railroaded or otherwise falsely convicted prisoners).
Gardner was born in Massachusetts, the son of a mining engineer who brought the family to the rugged West when Erle was a boy. After several roustabout years he settled in California, became a largely self-taught lawyer and began his law practice in 1911. As a young attorney, Gardner earned a strong local reputation as a progressive force known for vigorously defending the rights of the immigrant Mexicans and ethnic minorities in Ventura County. He wrote crime stories in what little spare time he had, in the beginning without success. Gardner had no great literary gifts to draw upon, but his energy and determination were boundless. After many rejection slips and painful rewriting and rethinking of his stories, he sold a story to Black Mask magazine, then only at the very start of a remarkable run as the most important and influential of all crime publications. Gardner’s first Black Mask sale, “Accomodatin’ a Lady” (September 1924) was a first-person narrative about breezy Bob Larkin, who eschewed guns when dealing with the bad guys and used more unexpected weaponry to defend himself, like a well-placed billiard cue. Gardner would publish more than 102 stories in Black Mask over the next 20 years, more than any other writer. He introduced a number of different series characters in the magazine, but his most popular was Ed Jenkins, also known as the Phantom Crook, a San Francisco-based adventurer who was featured in 73 stories, many of them making colorful use of Chinatown and its residents.
While Black Mask, especially under longtime editor Joseph Shaw, demanded a fairly realistic style of crime fiction, in other pulps Gardner was able to create many gimmicky and tongue-in-cheek stories and series heroes, including a “human fly” detective named Speed Dash who could scale the sides of buildings when necessary, and mysterious and disguised crime-solvers like the Patent Leather Kid and the Man in the Silver Mask.
Gardner had already turned out what an average writer might call a lifetime’s worth of work by the time he wrote his first novel, published by William Morrow in March 1933. The Case of the Velvet Claws featured a tough attorney named Perry Mason, and the narrative was spare, cynical, and hard-boiled in the Black Mask tradition (although Joe Shaw turned down the novel for serialization in Black Mask, leading to Gardner’s lasting resentment of the editor). Another Mason novel followed in the same year, and Mason mysteries continued to appear at the rate of two to four titles a year until several years after Gardner’s death in 1970 (due to the developer’s backlog), making Mason and his secretary Della Street, associate investigator Paul Drake, and nemesis/prosecutor Ham Burger some of the best-known characters in popular fiction. The hard-boiled lines of the first novels softened considerably as Gardner’s market expanded and the topics were serialized in the slick, high-paying general interest magazines. In general, Gardner honed his writing style almost to nonexistence, nothing more than a functional telling of the complicated plots, with much of the narrative carried in dialogue. In fact, after his first few years of success Gardner became known for dictating his topics to a battery of secretaries.
In addition to the Perry Mason novels, Gardner wrote about a district attorney named Doug Selby and, under the pen name of A. A. Fair, published a long series of lighthearted mysteries featuring the detective team of Bertha Cool and Donald Lam. In the 1930s, Warner Bros. filmed several of the Perry Mason novels, the best of them starring Warren William as Mason in his sleazy, tough-talking phase. In the 1950s Mason came to television in a series starring Raymond Burr, one of the most successful programs in television history.
Works
- Adventures of Paul Pry, The (1989);
- Amazing Adventures of Lester Leith, The (1981);
- Case of the Amorous Aunt, The (1963);
- Case of the Angry Mourner, The (1951);
- Case of the Backward Mule, The (1946);
- Case of the Baited Hook, The (1940);
- Case of the Beautiful Beggar, The (1965);
- Case of the Bigamous Spouse, The (1961);
- Case of the Black Eyed Blonde, The (1944);
- Case of the Blonde Bonanza, The (1962);
- Case of the Buried Clock, The (1943);
- Case of the Calendar Girl, The (1958);
- Case of the Careless Cupid, The (1968);
- Case of the Careless Kitten, The (1942);
- Case of the Caretaker’s Cat, The (1935);
- Case of the Cautious Coquette, The (1949);
- Case of the Counterfeit Eye, The (1935);
- Case of the Crimson Kiss, The (1971);
- Case of the Crooked Candle, The (1944);
- Case of the Crying Swallow, The (1971);
- Case of the Curious Bride, The (1934);
- Case of the Dangerous Dowager, The (1937);
- Case of the Daring Decoy, The (1957);
- Case of the Daring Divorcee, The (1964);
- Case of the Deadly Toy, The (1959);
- Case of the Demure Defendant, The (1956);
- Case of the Drowning Duck, The (1942);
- Case of the Drowsy Mosquito, The (1943);
- Case of the Dubious Bridegroom, The (1949);
- Case of the Duplicate Daughter, The (1960);
- Case of the Empty Tin, The (1941);
- Case of the Fabulous Fake, The (1969);
- Case of the Fan Dancer’s Horse, The (1947);
- Case of the Fenced-In Woman, The (1972);
- Case of the Fiery Fingers, The (1951);
- Case of the Footloose Doll, The (1958);
- Case of the Fugitive Nurse, The (1954);
- Case of the Gilded Lily, The (1956);
- Case of the Glamorous Ghost, The (1955);
- Case of the Golddigger’s Purse (1945);
- Case of the Green Eyed Sister, The (1953);
- Case of the Grinning Gorilla, The (1952);
- Case of the Half-Wakened Wife, The (1945);
- Case of the Haunted Husband, The (1941);
- Case of the Hesitant Hostess, The (1953);
- Case of the Horrified Heirs, The (1964);
- Case of the Howling Dog, The (1934);
- Case of the Ice Cold Hands, The (1962);
- Case of the Irate Witness, The (1972);
- Case of the Lame Canary, The (1937);
- Case of the Lazy Lover, The (1947);
- Case of the Lonely Heiress, The (1948);
- Case of the Long-legged Models, The (1958);
- Case of the Lucky Legs, The (1934);
- Case of the Lucky Loser, The (1957);
- Case of the Mischievous Doll, The (1963);
- Case of the Moth Eaten Mink, The (1952);
- Case of the Musical Cow, The (1950);
- Case of the Mythical Monkeys, The (1959);
- Case of the Negligent Nymph, The (1950);
- Case of the Nervous Accomplice, The (1955);
- Case of the One Eyed Witness, The (1950);
- Case of the Perjured Parrot, The (1939);
- Case of the Phantom Fortune, The (1964);
- Case of the Postponed Murder, The (1973);
- Case of the Queenly Contestant, The (1976);
- Case of the Reluctant Model, The (1962);
- Case of the Restless Redhead, The (1954);
- Case of the Rolling Bones, The (1939);
- Case of the Runaway Corpse, The (1954);
- Case of the Screaming Woman, The (1957);
- Case of the Shapely Shadow, The (1960);
- Case of the Shoplifter’s Shoe, The (1938);
- Case of the Silent Partner, The (1940);
- Case of the Singing Skirt, The (1959);
- Case of the Sleepwalker’s Niece, The (1936);
- Case of the Smoking Chimney, The (1943);
- Case of the Spurious Spinster, The (1961);
- Case of the Stepdaughter’s Secret, The (1963);
- Case of the Stuttering Bishop, The (1936);
- Case of the Substitute Face, The (1938);
- Case of the Sulky Girl, The (1933);
- Case of the Sunbather’s Diary, The (1955);
- Case of the Terrified Typist, The (1956);
- Case of the Troubled Trustee, The (1965);
- Case of the Turning Tide, The (1941);
- Case of the Vagabond Virgin, The (1948);
- Case of the Velvet Claws, The (1933);
- Case of the Waylaid Wolf, The (1960);
- Case of the Worried Waitress, The (1966);
- D.A. Breaks an Egg, The (1949);
- D.A. Breaks a Seal, The (1946);
- D.A. Calls a Turn, The (1944);
- D.A. Calls It Murder, The (1937);
- D.A. Cooks a Goose, The (1942);
- D.A. Draws a Circle, The (1939);
- D.A. Goes to Trial, The (1940);
- D.A. Holds a Candle, The (1938);
- D.A. Takes a Chance, The (1948);
- Dead Men’s Letters (1989);
- Murder Up My Sleeve (1937)
As A. A. Fair:
- All Grass Isn’t Green (1970);
- Bachelors Get Lonely (1961);
- Bats Fly at Dusk (1942);
- Bedrooms Have Windows (1949);
- Beware the Curves (1956);
- Bigger They Come, The (1939);
- Cats Prowl at Night (1943);
- Count of Nine, The (1958);
- Crows Can’t Count (1946);
- Cut Thin to Win (1965);
- Double or Quits (1941);
- Fish or Cut Bait (1963);
- Fools Die on Friday (1947);
- Give ‘em the Ax (1944);
- Gold Comes in Bricks (1940);
- Kept Women Can’t Quit (1960);
- Owls Don’t Blink (1942);
- Pass the Gravy (1959);
- Shills Can’t Cash Ships (1961);
- Some Slips Don’t Show (1957);
- Some Women Won’t Wait (1953);
- Spill the Jackpot (1941);
- Top of the Heap (1952);
- Traps Need Fresh Bait (1967);
- Try Anything Once (1962);
- Turn on the Heat (1940);
- Up for Grabs (1964);
- Widows Wear Weeds (1966);
- You Can Die Laughing (1957)
