Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Erle Stanley Gardner Update

Law-Related Resources at the Harry Ransom Center: "Erle Stanley Gardner (1889-1970): One of America's leading writers of detective fiction. The collection includes material from publication of his first Perry Mason book in 1932 until his death in 1970. The collection contains 4,000 scripts of the Perry Mason radio show and TV scripts with notes written by Gardner. There are photos, news clippings, letters, dictation tapes, and correspondence between the author and his publisher. An exact replica of Gardner's study is located on the 4th floor of the Flawn Academic Center."

I may have blogged about this exhibit at The University of Texas at Austin before. I've seen the study, which is a small one-room building. You can't go inside it, but you can walk around the outside and look in the windows at the stuff inside. It's supposedly just as Gardner left it. While you're looking, Gardner himself gives you a tour that he recorded before his death.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

I remember walking around looking at all the stuff there and being fascinated by all the little "Gertrude" kangaroos from Pocket Books (must have been a dozen or more of them) representing certain sales milestones, like 10,000,000 or more. Kind of cool.

Unknown said...

Maybe I'll get back again one of these days.

Ed Gorman said...

One of the great thrills of my young life was buying a mint hardcover copy of an Erle Stanley Gardner hardcover for a dime at a Salvation Army. This was before they went to photographic covers. I've always preferred the slightly melodramatic paintings of the earlier books. I've never outgrown my enthusiasm for Gardner, especially the A.A. Fairs.

Unknown said...

I discovered the A. A. Fairs after reading Perry Mason for a while. They were a revelation to me. Really enjoyed them.

Livia J Washburn said...

I never was a big Perry Mason fan, but I loved the Bertha Cool-Donald Lam mysteries.

Roo said...

Wow! Wish I could have a look at this collection! I'm currently writing a piece on Perry Mason and can't believe how much stuff was produced. You can have a look at this Here I'm hoping to have it completed in the next week, though it's taking a while just to link up the 80 odd books to copies for sale on amazon. The movies aren't going to take as long, or the Tv Series, but am a bit nervous about even attempting to catalogue the radio series!

Unknown said...

Thanks, Roo. I've linked your squidoo page on the blog.