Every day brings a new story. And each day contributes to story telling -- in prose and in poetry, in art and in music, on the stage, on the screen, and, of course, in books.
Today is the story of July 17th
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It is the 198th day of the year, leaving 167 days remaining in 2022.
Gardner told his fictional legal stories with the attorney as the hero, mostly defending the innocent. But despite being best known for his iconic character, defense attorney extraordinaire Perry Mason, Gardner also wrote about crusading and courageous prosecutors. He also wrote detective fiction.
Above all, he was a prolific, popular writer, with hundreds of stories and novels to his name -- as well as hundreds more written under several pseudonyms. A lawyer by trade, with extensive courtroom experience, he also wrote books that included western novels, and non-fiction accounts of his travels.
But lawyer-detective short stories and novels were his bread-and-butter. He started writing for pulp magazines, especially for Black Mask and Detective Fiction Weekly. During the 1920s and 1930s, he dominated the genre, often having several stories out each month, multiple stories in single issues, and serials in successive issues.
In the 1930s, he added novels to his writings, publishing his first Perry Mason story, The Case of the Velvet Claws. Gardner's writing style was not to worry about the personal lives of his characters, but to tell a hardnosed, just-the-fact-ma'am-style story. His details -- and there were many -- went to the story, not to the characters.
In the early books, Mason was a hardboiled, pull-no-punches private detective. Eventually, he was fleshed out through 80-odd novels, radio shows, movies, and a popular 1950s television show. Gardner was there through it all.
He died in 1970.
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