Leslie Charteris
Personal Information
Description
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.
Books
Baker's Dozen
Twelve short crime novels: Leslie Charteris - The Lawless Lady Mignon Eberhart - Introducing Susan Dare Cornell Woolrich - Nightmare John D. MacDonald - Death's Eye View Hugh Pentecost - The Murder Machine Erle Stanley Gardner - Death Rides a Boxcar Ross Macdonald - The Bearded Lady Fredric Brown - Murder Set to Music Rex Stout - The Zero Clue Ed McBain - Storm Daphne du Maurier - Don't Look Now Bill Pronzini - Booktaker
Meet the Tiger/ (Variant Title = the Saint Meets the Tiger)
(aka "The Saint meets the Tiger.") In the quiet village of Baycombe on the North Devon Coast, the Saint must match wits with a deadly gang of crooks, led by an anonymous person - only known by the name of "the Tiger." All of this without a hair out of place. And while finding the time to romance our heroine. And shining the Saintly halo on friends and enemies alike...
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
The fantastic Saint
A collection of short stories with fantasy and science fiction elements, featuring Simon Templar, the Saint. >Introduction by Martin H. Greenberg > "The Gold Standard" (1933) >"The Newdick Helicopter" (1934) >"The Man Who Liked Ants" (1937) >"The Questing Tycoon" (1954) >"The Darker Drink" (1948) >"The Convenient Monster" (1959) >Afterword by Leslie Charteris
Le Saint conduit le bal
Three short stories. Clasic Saint. > The Saint tangles with a disappearing corpse, a fortune in stolen jewels and a lovely lady in distress in a new set of adventures.
Prelude for war
[Variant titles: Prelude for war; The Saint and the sinners.) (from the back cover) How simon Templar handled a fire, led Chief Inspector Claud Eustace Teal up the garden path, bewildered the constabulary, eloped with a lady, incarcerated a Cabinet Minister and in many other ways bettered his lot without burning his fingers.