"PERRY MASON"--successful novels by ERLE STANLEY GARDNER became the basis for long-running hit TV series starring RAYMOND BURR as the brilliant criminal defense lawyer who only lost one case in his career

Perry Mason Series Book Series

Criminal lawyer and bestselling mystery author Erle Stanley Gardner wrote nearly 150 novels that have sold 300 million copies worldwide. 

Starting with his first book, Gardner had a very definite vision of the shape the Perry Mason character would take:

"I want to make my hero a fighter," he wrote to his publisher, "not by having him be ruthless to women and underlings, but by creating a character who, with infinite patience jockeys his enemies into a position where he can deliver one good knockout punch."

Perry Mason: The Complete Series

 

Based on characters created by Erle Stanley Gardner, this long-running legal drama series was guilty of just one thing: being great TV. For nine seasons from 1957-1966, Perry (Raymond Burr) defended seemingly indefensible cases with help from his beautiful secretary Della Street (Barbara Hale) and suave private investigator Paul Drake (William Hopper). The series won three Emmys and became the template for every US courtroom drama that followed. After appearing as Perry Mason for nine seasons, Burr continued his portrayal of the lawyer for four decades. Burr appeared in 26 TV movies produced between 1985 and 1993. 

 

 

 

Erle Stanley Gardner

 

Erle Stanley Gardner (July 17, 1889-March 11, 1970) was an American lawyer and author of detective stories who also published under the pseudonyms A.A. Fair, Kyle Corning, Charles M. Green, Carleton Kendrake, Charles J. Kenny, Les Tillray, and Robert Parr.

 

Innovative and restless in his nature, he was bored by the routine of legal practice, the only part of which he enjoyed was trial work and the development of trial strategy. In his spare time, he began to write for pulp magazines, which also fostered the early careers of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler. He created many different series characters for the pulps, including the ingenious Lester Leith, a "gentleman thief" in the tradition of Raffles, and Ken Corning, a crusading lawyer who was the archetype of his most successful creation, the fictional lawyer and crime-solver Perry Mason, about whom he wrote more than eighty novels. With the success of Perry Mason, he gradually reduced his contributions to the pulp magazines, eventually withdrawing from the medium entirely, except for non-fiction articles on travel, Western history, and forensic science.

 

As author William F. Nolan notes, "Gardner, more than any other writer, popularized the law profession for a mass-market audience, melding fact and fiction to achieve a unique blend; no one ever handled courtroom drama better than he did."