RARA-AVIS: Erle Stanley Gardner

From: James Rogers ( jetan@ionet.net)
Date: 19 Jul 2000


At 10:34 AM 7/19/00 -0400, Bill Hagen wrote:
  
>
>On another note, I was surprised to learn in the same study that Chandler
and
>Gardner apparently had a mutual admiration throughout their careers. I mean
>everyone knows the story of how Chandler practiced writing a Gardner story
from
>memory to learn how such stories were constructed and his tricks of style,
but
>I didn't know that Chandler continued reading and liking the Perry Masons.
>
>Perhaps this is a case of a writer's reading more widely than his fans?

    Chandler said that he considered ESG to be a close friend. This from a guy who didn't make friends so easy. May explain some of it.
    On the other hand....and keep in mind it's been years since I read any of the books, although I still have a ton of them....weren't the early Perry Mason books pretty much straight hardboiled? My impression was the series started out tough and then got domesticated as they reached their wider audience.
    Certainly ESG could and did write fine HB stuff. And I agree that we should probably talk about his stuff sometime. After all, he is the only Black Mask author who probably has outsold Chandler and Hammett put together.

                                        James

James Michael Rogers jetan@ionet.net

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