UNITED KINGDOM AUTHOR · FICTION · PRIVATE INVESTIGATORS
Leslie Charteris
Also known as: Charteri, Leslie CHARTERIS
Leslie Charteris was born Leslie Charles Bowyer-Yin in Singapore, the son of a Chinese physician father and an English mother. He started writing in childhood, creating his own magazine with articles, short stories, poetry, editorials, serials, comic strip. In 1926, he legally changed his last name to Charteris. He wrote his first book, X Esquire (1927), as an undergraduate at King's College, Cambridge. When it was accepted for publication, he left university to became a professional writer. He continued to write thrillers while supporting himself by working odd jobs, including as laborer on a freighter, bartender in a country inn, gold prospector, pearl fisher, tin miner, laborer on a rubber plantation, carnival hand, and bus driver. He was most famous for his series of books featuring detective Simon Templar, known as The Saint. Charteris moved to the United States in 1932 and started writing screenplays for Paramount Pictures in addition to his other fiction. In the 1940s he also wrote for the Sherlock Holmes radio series. In 1952 he married Hollywood actress Audrey Long. In 1961, Charteris sold the television rights to The Saint series to ITC and a successful television show was produced starring Roger Moore. Initially the episodes were based on Charteris' stories, but later original scripts were commissioned from other authors. These scripts were novelised and published under Charteris' name but were in fact written by others. Charteris stopped writing the Saint books after The Saint in the Sun (1963), although he did collaborate on several in the 1970s. The series went on to total nearly 100 books. Charteris appears to have been an editor for the Saint books after he stopped writing them, and he also edited and wrote for The Saint Mystery Magazine. Leslie Charteris died at Windsor, Berkshire.
SIMON TEMPLAR landed in England when the news of Brian Quell's murder was on the streets.
— from The Saint and Mr. Teal
Most acclaimed
Great Short Tales of Mystery and Terror
Each story in Great Short Tales of Mystery and Terror is an example of the work of an outstanding author--from Edgar Allan Poe and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to such modern masters as Agatha Christie, Ross Macdonald, Georges Simenon and a score of other famous names. Appearing in these pages are the world's greatest fictional detectives--Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot, Father Brown, James Bond, Lew Archer, Ellery Queen, Inspector Maigret and Perry Mason, all at work on some of their more baffling and fascinating cases. Contents: [THE RED-HEADED LEAGUE]( / Sir Arthur Conan Doyle THE TURN OF THE TIDE / C. S Forester THE SUMMER PEOPLE / Shirley Jackson [THE CASK OF AMONTILLADO]( / Edgar Allan Poe THE THIRD FLOOR FLAT / Agatha Christie THE MAN WHO LIKED DICKENS / Evelyn Waugh WAS IT A DREAM / Guy de Maupassant THE FOURTH MAN / John Russell THE WENDIGO / Algernon Blackwood THE TOUCH OF NUTMEG MAKES IT / John Collier THE ABSENCE OF MR. GLASS / G. K. Chesterton MIRIAM / Truman capote THE LOG OF THE EVENING STAR / Alfred Noyes CASTING THE RUNES / M. R. James [MAN FROM THE SOUTH]( / Roald Dahl THE WHOLE TOWNS SLEEPING / Ray Bradbury THE ARROW OF GOD / Leslie Charteris THE TWO BOTTLES OF RELISH / Lord Dunsany THE GETTYSBURG BUGLE / Ellery Queen [The Damned Thing]( / Ambrose Bierce DON'T LOOK NOW / Daphne du Maurier THE HANDS OF MR. OTITRMOLE / Thomas Burke AN ALPINE DIVORCE / Robert Barr THE INCAUTIOUS BURGLAR / John Dickson Carr THANATOS PALACE HOTEL / André Maurois THE GHOST.SHIP / Richard Middleton THE RATS IN THE WALLS / H. P. Lovecraft AETER.DINNER STORY / William Irish ANOTHER SOLUTION j Gilbert Highet THE WAXWORK / A. M. Burrage FOR YOUR EYES ONLY / Ian Fleming THE FOGHORN / Gertrude Atherton LEININGEN VERSUS THE ANTS / c-arl. Stephenson THE INTERRUPTION / W. W. Jacobs AN INVITATION TO THE HUNT / George Hitchcock THE VOICE IN THE NIGHT / William Hope Hodgson MIDNIGHT BLUE / Ross Macdonald THE REIVRN OF IMRAY / Rudyard Kipling JOURNEY BACKWARD INTO TIME / Georges Simenon THE MOVIE PEOPLE / Robert Bloch BROKER'S SPECIAL / Stanley Ellin THE SEA RAIDERS / H. G. Wells THE CASE OF THE IRATE WITNTESS / Erie Stanley Gardner SREDNI VASHTAR / Saki (H. H. Munro) THE NINE BILLION NAMES or GOD / Arthur C. Clarke
Alias the Saint
from the back cover of the Pan Edition (the American Edition has different stories, AFAIK): The Story of a Dead Man: The Saint turns businessman - and runs an office which is, to say the least, unusual... The Impossible Crime: In a room overlooking the Thames a man is shot dead, but all the doors are found locked, and it takes the Saint to solve the crime... The National Debt: 20th-century pirates operating from an inn in south Wales have their plans upset when the Saint moves in... ... 'The Saint - Leslie Charteris's indestructible swashbuckling hero'