Erle Stanley Gardner’s Other Series Characters
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Long before he hit it really big with Perry Mason (and moderately big with Bertha Cool and Donald Lam), the endlessly inventive Erle Stanley Gardner created dozens and dozens of colourful and sometimes downright odd characters for the pulps of the twenties and thirties, before turning towards the more lucrative field of novels. Most of them were the good guys, but I think it’s fair to say that few of them were angels. They were con artists, private eyes, lawyers, flim flam men, cowboys, angle players, career diplomats, and corner cutters, more than willing to bend and twist the law to achieve their goals, whether it was to see justice done or simply to relieving some criminal of his ill-gotten goods. Most of them were at least colourful, some were definitely eccentric and a few of them were just plain weird. And in what was surely a recurring motif, many were quiter wealthy; something that must have appealed to Depression-era readers.
These misfits appeared in all kinds of pulps, not just Black Mask and Argosy, but also Clues, All Detective, Dime Detective, Detective Story, Dime Detective, Detective Action Stories, Double Detective, This Week, Detective Fiction Weekly, not to mention West and some other cowboy pulps. Later, some of them popped up in such slicks such as The Country Gentleman, Cosmopolitan and The Saturday Evening Post. A lot of them have been rounded up in assorted collections and anthologies, but many have — even years later — never been reprinted.
So, if you’re ever prowling around a yard sale or a flea market and spy an old, tattered pulp with a Garner story in it going for pocket change, pick it up. Chances are you won’t be disappointed.
CHARACTER |
DESCRIPTION |
MOSTLY APPEARED IN |
Sheriff Billy Bales | A Western series. | Clues |
Jerry Bane | A wealthy “self-appointed detective.”
Similar to Paul Pry. |
Argosy |
Dave Barker | Crime | Three Star Magazine |
Black Barr aka “Fate’s Executioner |
A Western gunslinger & detective. | Black Mask, Rapid Fire Detective |
Dred Bart | A well-heeled criminologist/psychologist. | Clues, Detective Fiction Weekly |
Dudley Bell | A wealthy dandy who “smoked monogrammed cigarettes and didnt care about money.” | All Detective |
Dick Bentley | Dime Detective | |
Jax Bowman | The “White Ring” series. | Argosy |
Major Copley Brane | A freelance diplomat/spy. | Argosy |
Perry Burke | Shared a mansion with “The Cleaning House of Crime” and supposedly fought “organized crime twenty-four hours a day.” | Clues |
Terry Clane | A San Francisco lawyer/adventurer and Sinophile. | Appeared in two novels; one first published in Cosmopolitan |
Ken Corning | A crusading New York attorney, full of tricks, and an obvious predecessor to Perry Mason. | Black Mask |
Sheriff Bob Crowder | All Detective | |
Speed Dash | The clean-living “Human Fly.” | Top-Notch Magazine |
Señor Arnaz de Lobo | A Mexican adventurer and soldier of fortune. | Detective Fiction Weekly |
Double Decker | Written as Kyle Corning. | Detective Story |
El Paisano | Another scam artist. He can see in the dark. | Argosy |
Sheriff Bill Eldon | The Country Gentleman | |
Go Get ‘Em Garver | Dime Detective | |
Ben Harper | “The Man Who Couldn’t Forget” | All Detective, Detective Fiction Weekly |
Hard Rock Hogan | ||
Ed Jenkins | A con artist/thief; “The Phantom Crook.” | Black Mask |
Rex Kane | An escaped con with plastic surgery problems that forced him to always smile. | Detective Action Stories |
Jax Keen | A movie company troubleshooter. | Double Detective |
Barney “Want-Ad” Killigen | A perpetually struggling lawyer with a knack for cutting corners. Known for his habit of placing numerous ads in the papers to aid in his investigations. | Clues |
Bob Larkin | Adventurer. An amateur juggler, his weapon of choice is a pool cue. | Black Mask |
Win Layton | A girl reporter. | This Week |
Lester Leith | Another of Gardner’s wealthy gentleman thieves. A “jaunty figure of assured indifference.” | Detective Fiction Weekly |
The Man in the Silver Mask | Essentially a costumed crimefighter, thanks to that mask. | Detective Fiction Weekly |
Mr. Manse | His eyes were said to emit “a cold fire of conccentration.” Wealthy. | Detective Action Stories |
Jerry Marr | A private eye. | Detective Fiction Weekly |
Fish Mouth McGinnis | A Western hero. | The Smart Set, Complete Stories |
Ed Migraine | “The Headache,” particularly to those this ex-soldier of fortune encounters. | Double Detective |
Sam Moraine | Written under the pseudonym of Charles Kenny. | The American Magazine |
Old Walrus | West and a few other cowboy pulps | |
The Patent Leather Kid | A confidence man on the side of the angels; has a thing about leather. | Detective Fiction Weekly |
Paul Pry | A wealthy scam artist; aka “The Crime Juggler.” | |
Peter Quint | AÂ hotshot salesman and possible con artist. | The Saturday Evening Post |
Steve Raney | Clues | |
Buck Riley | West, Brief Stories | |
Snowy Shane | An unorthodox P.I. Like, Gardner wrote any other kind? | |
Dane Skarle | A crime-solving carny. | Dime Detective |
Small, Weston & Burke | A law firm specializing in bizarre cases. Or is it “Smith, Weston & Burke”? | Dime Detective |
Pete Wennick | A lawyer who worked as an undercover investigator for his firm. | Black Mask |
Grandpa Wiggins | Appeared in two novels. | |
Slicker Williams | An ex-con who uses “the tricks of crookery” to rescue a damsel in distress. | |
Yee Dooey Wah | Clues, Detective Fiction Weekly | |
Bob Zane | A philosophical middle-aged prospector. The “Whispering Sands” series. | Argosy |
Sidney Zoom | A millionaire adventurer & master of disguise. Had a police dog. | Detective Fiction Weekly |