MYSTERY WRITERS.INFO

ERLE STANLEY GARDNER
AMAZING FACTS

Profile:
              Erle Stanley Gardner (1889-1970), an American novelist is the author of 129 mystery novels that sold more than 300 million copies all around the world. His most popular sleuth, Perry Mason appears in 82 of his novels. The first Mason story, The Case of the Velvet Claws (1933), was Gardner's first novel. In nine of his novels, District Attorney Douglas Selby is the protagonist. He even wrote 29 novels under the pseudonym A. A. Fair about  private investigators Bertha Cool and Donald Lam. In addition, Gardner also wrote hundreds of mystery, western, and science fiction novelettes and short stories, and several volumes of nonfiction.
                                                                                              He was born in Malden, Massachusetts. He got his education in California and was admitted to the bar at the age of 21. He was a struggling young lawyer in Oxnard, California and known as the defender of the Chinese, a minority group then considered beneath the dignity of rights unalienable to others. Along with writing, he practiced law for 21 years, specializing in trial cases.

Amazing Facts:

He wrote under the pseudonyms A. A. Fair, Doug Selby and the D.A. 

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