Overview: A list of Perry Mason novels, including notes on plot devices, recurring characters, and legal matters, as well as a few photos of book covers.
I’m a fan of the Perry Mason novels by Erle Stanley Gardner. I’ve read all 80 of the novels published in Gardner’s lifetime, plus the 2 novels published posthumously; I’ve also read the 3 short stories featuring Perry Mason. Since I love to reread the books (I know, I have low taste in literature), I’ve started keeping notes on various topics.
1. Recurring characters: I’m particularly interested in the way the recurring characters are treated. During all those years, the character of Mason never ages, and his relationships with the other recurring characters remains mostly static. But there are some subtle changes in relationships. E.g., in a few novels Mason kisses Della Street and once or twice they even talk about marriage, although in other novels their relationship is far less intimate.
2. Plot devices: Gardner was a one-man fiction-writing factory, sometimes churning out half a dozen novels a year, along with short stories and non-fiction pieces. Not surprisingly, he reuses a number of plot devices more than once — murder in a motel, murder over mining rights, murder over wills, etc. Yet in spite of this, the majority of Gardner’s plots show at least some imagination and creativity, and they are rarely boring.
3. Legal matters: Since Gardner was a trial lawyer himself, the novels sometimes contain interesting legal matters. Gardner places Perry Mason in a variety of legal settings, including preliminary trials, jury trials, county and Federal courtrooms, coroner’s hearing, conferences in a judge’s chambers, etc. Occasionally, Gardner cites actual California state law. (In fact, there’s enough legal interest in the books that the publishing arm of the American Bar Association reprinted a dozen or so of the novels.)
4. Other matters: I’m also interested in the Perry Mason books is the way they depict the times they were written in. Gardner wrote the novels from 1933 through 1969, a period that saw quite a bit of social change, and the novels reflect this to some degree. E.g., the novels published during World War II contain references to the war; beatniks appear in some of the 1950s novels; etc.
The links below take you to webpages with checklists of the Perry Mason novels and stories by Gardner, sorted by decade (the entire checklist used to be on this page, but it grew too long and had to be split up). I’m slowly adding commentary for each novel on the above topics: recurring characters, plot devices, and legal matters. I’ve included a dozen or so photos of books and book covers, but I will not include a cover image for every title.
If you’d like to contribute to this project, please email me or leave a comment.
- Perry Mason novels from the 1930s
- Perry Mason novels from the 1940s
- Perry Mason novels from the 1950s
- Perry Mason novels from the 1960s
- Perry Mason novels from the 1970s, and shorter stories
Plot devices
Listing the plot devices is an iterative process. As I begin to list the plot devices for the novels, I identify more plot devices that Gardner uses repeatedly. Then I have to go back and check the novels I’ve already read for those plot devices. I’m slowly coming up with a standardized list of the plot devices Gardner uses more than once.
Below is a partial list of some of the plot devices used by Gardner.
- Amnesia
- Arsenic poisoning
- Attractive young women
- Blackmail
- Boats (including sailboats, river cruisers; see Ocean voyage for ocean liners)
- Bullets being switched
- Car run off mountain road
- Cheesecake (deliberately titillating depictions of attractive young women)
- Cooling things artificially
- Desert camping
- Divorce
- Fast driving — and in later stories, obeying the speed laws
- Fingerprints
- Forgery
- Gambling
- Glass eyes
- Hiding the murder weapon
- Identity confusion (including adoption, sisters, twins)
- Lie detectors
- Locked room mystery
- Lying client
- Mining
- Motels
- Mountain cabins
- Ocean voyage
- Photography
- Sleepwalking
- Split personality
- Technology and science
- Tracking
- Wills and faked wills
- Young men with too much facial hair (1960s novels)
Recurring characters
Perry Mason’s law office
- Perry Mason, lawyer
- Della Street, Mason’s secretary
- Gertie, or Gertrude Lade, Mason’s receptionist
- Frank Everly, Mason’s law clerk
- Jackson, Mason’s law clerk, later called “office lawyer”; no first name ever given
Drake Detective Agency
- Paul Drake, detective
Law enforcement
- Sergeant Holcomb, police officer
- Lieutenant Arthur Tragg, homicide detective
District Attorney’s office
- Claude Drumm, chief trial deputy for the D.A.’s office (before Hamilton Burger)
- Hamilton Burger, district attorney
Further reading
Breen, Jon L. Novel verdicts: a guide to courtroom fiction. Scarecrow Press, 1999.
Gardner, Erle Stanley. Perry Mason novels and stories.
Grost, Michael. “Erle Stanley Gardner.” http://www.mikegrost.com/gardner.htm accessed 16 November 2013.
Hughes, Dorothy B. The Case of the Real Perry Mason. Morrow: 1978.
Moore, Ruth. “Bibliography of Erle Stanley Gardner.” In Hughes, 1978.
Useful info, thanks. It would be nice if the Mason cases with DA Burger are listed separately. That is, Perry Mason books featuring Hamilton Burger himself and not his deputies
Sankaran, good suggestion. I actually have notes on some of that — I just have to find time to add those notes to this page.
I ran into this page, while searching for a Perry Mason book I read about 50 years ago. My English teacher advised I read Perry Mason books to learn English. I started reading most cases of Perry Mason’s and enjoyed thoroughly. Most of the book you listed are familiar to me.
However, I lost the book I was most impressed: I don’t recall the title or even the title started “the case of etc.” The story is: Perry Mason defended a young girl charged for murder: his asking price is $1: when he successfully defended the girl, she asked him why he undertook the case at such a low price, he said “You know, the best shing is always the cheapest.”
I started reading Perry Mason books and even to the National Library of Japan but still cannot find the book. When I asked AI (Microsoft’s Copilot), AI told me it’s “The case of the Shoplifter’s Shoe”. I read through the book but couldn’t find the phase I was looking for.
I would appreciate your answer to my question or advise how to pursue in the future. Any advice would be fine. Thank you!
Sonoe, I too am unable to find this phrase in “The Case of the Shoplifter’s Shoe.” I’m not able to read through all 85 Perry Mason novels, but nevertheless I’ll keep an eye out for this passage as I reread the books.