| Novels↙ | 19 |
|---|---|
| Collections↙ | 14 |
| Scripts↙ | 8 |
| Translations↙ | 1 |
| Novellas↙ | 11 |
| Non-fiction↙ | 2 |
| Introduction↙ | 1 |
| References and footnotes | |
Leslie Charteris (born Leslie Charles Bowyer Yin; 1907–1993) was a British-American writer best known for his series on stories featuring Simon Templar, also known as The Saint.[1] Born in Singapore to a Chinese father, Suat Yin Chwan, and his English wife, Lydia (née Bowyer), Charteris travelled extensively with his family until beginning his education in England in 1919.[2][3] In 1925 he enrolled at King's College, Cambridge, but left after a year in order to become a writer;[4] to support himself, he worked as a goldminer, bartender, professional bridge player and temporary policeman. In October 1926 he changed his name by deed poll to Leslie Charles Bowyer Charteris-Ian, and professionally used the shorter version, Leslie Charteris.[1]
Charteris's first five novels were published by Ward Lock & Co; he also had a story The Red River published in their Windsor Magazine in May 1927. The first novel, X Esquire, which he later described as "an appallingly bad book", was published in 1927;[5] his second novel—The White Rider, published in 1928—is "overwritten and poorly constructed", according to his biographer Joan DelFattore.[5] In his third novel, Meet the Tiger (1928), he introduced the character of Simon Templar, a debonair gentleman crook who goes by the nom de guerre, The Saint.[6]
Charteris continued writing Saint books and the series gained in popularity because of its "mix of light humour, sophisticated settings, and story-line emphasising the role of a crusader tackling the forces of evil", which had "special appeal in the depression".[1] Charteris moved to the United States in 1932 and soon began writing screenplays, the first of which resulted in Midnight Club, released in 1933.[7][8]
In the June 1954 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Charteris published Fish Story.[9] According to the editors, it was written during (or inspired by) a leisure trip to Florida.
Charteris also worked on three books of non-fiction and an introduction to the 1980 re-issue of The Saint Meets the Tiger. The works consisted of a translation from Spanish to English of the autobiography of the bullfighter Juan Belmonte, a language guide to Spanish, and a guide to Paleneo, a wordless, pictorial sign language invented by Charteris.[10] He died in Windsor, Berkshire, in April 1993.[1]
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