Erle Stanley Gardner Books In Order

Publication Order of Perry Mason Books

The Case of the Velvet Claws	1933
The Case of the Sulky Girl	1933
The Case of the Lucky Legs	1934
The Case of the Howling Dog	1934
The Case of the Curious Bride	1934
The Case of the Counterfeit Eye	1935
The Case of the Caretaker’s Cat	1935
The Case of the Sleepwalker’s Niece	1936
The Case of the Stuttering Bishop	1936
The Case of the Dangerous Dowager	1937
The Case of the Lame Canary	1937
The Case of the Substitute Face	1938
The Case of the Shoplifter’s Shoe	1938
The Case of the Perjured Parrot	1939
The Case of the Rolling Bones	1939
The Case of the Baited Hook	1940
The Case of the Silent Partner	1940
The Case of the Haunted Husband	1941
The Case of the Empty Tin	1941
The Case of the Drowning Duck	1942
The Case of the Careless Kitten	1942
The Case of the Buried Clock	1943
The Case of the Drowsy Mosquito	1943
The Case of the Crooked Candle	1944
The Case of the Black-Eyed Blonde	1944
The Case of the Golddigger’s Purse	1945
The Case of the Half-Wakened Wife	1945
The Case of the Borrowed Brunette	1946
The Case of the Fan Dancer’s Horse	1947
The Case of the Lazy Lover	1947
The Case of the Lonely Heiress	1948
The Case of the Vagabond Virgin	1948
The Case of the Dubious Bridegroom	1949
The Case of the Cautious Coquette	1949
The Case of the Negligent Nymph	1950
The Case of the One-Eyed Witness	1950
The Case of the Fiery Fingers	1951
The Case of the Angry Mourner	1951
The Case of the Moth-Eaten Mink	1952
The Case of the Grinning Gorilla	1952
The Case of the Hesitant Hostess	1953
The Case of the Green-Eyed Sister	1953
The Case of the Fugitive Nurse	1954
The Case of the Runaway Corpse	1954
The Case of the Restless Redhead	1954
The Case of the Glamorous Ghost	1955
The Case of the Sun Bather’s Diary	1955
The Case of the Nervous Accomplice	1955
The Case of the Terrified Typist	1956
The Case of the Demure Defendant	1956
The Case of the Gilded Lily	1956
The Case of the Lucky Loser	1957
The Case of the Screaming Woman	1957
The Case of the Daring Decoy	1957
The Case of the Long-Legged Models	1958
The Case of the Foot-Loose Doll	1958
The Case of the Calendar Girl	1958
The Case of the Deadly Toy	1959
The Case of the Mythical Monkeys	1959
The Case of the Singing Skirt	1959
The Case of the Waylaid Wolf	1960
The Case of the Duplicate Daughter	1960
The Case of the Shapely Shadow	1960
The Case of the Spurious Spinster	1961
The Case of the Bigamous Spouse	1961
The Case of the Reluctant Model	1962
The Case of the Blonde Bonanza	1962
The Case of the Ice-Cold Hands	1962
The Case of the Mischievous Doll	1963
The Case of the Stepdaughter’s Secret	1963
The Case of the Amorous Aunt	1963
The Case of the Daring Divorcee	1964
The Case of the Phantom Fortune	1964
The Case of the Horrified Heirs	1964
The Case of the Troubled Trustee	1965
The Case of the Beautiful Beggar	1965
The Case of the Worried Waitress	1966
The Case of the Queenly Contestant	1967
The Case of the Careless Cupid	1968
The Case of the Fabulous Fake	1969
The Case of the Fenced-In Woman	1972
The Case of the Postponed Murder	1973

Publication Order of Cool and Lam Books

The Bigger They Come / Lam to the Slaughter	1939
Turn on the Heat	1940
Gold Comes in Bricks	1940
Spill the Jackpot!	1941
Double or Quits	1941
Owls Don’t Blink	1942
Bats Fly at Dusk	1942
Cats Prowl at Night	1943
Give ’Em the Ax	1944
Crows Can’t Count	1946
Fools Die on Friday	1947
Bedrooms Have Windows	1949
Top of the Heap	1952
Some Women Won’t Wait	1953
Beware the Curves	1956
You Can Die Laughing	1957
Some Slips Don’t Show	1957
The Count of Nine	1958
Pass the Gravy	1959
Kept Women Can’t Quit	1960
Bachelors Get Lonely	1961
Shills Can’t Cash Chips	1961
Try Anything Once	1962
Fish or Cut Bait	1963
Up for Grabs	1964
Cut Thin to Win	1965
Widows Wear Weeds	1966
Traps Need Fresh Bait	1967
All Grass Isn’t Green	1970
The Knife Slipped	2016

Publication Order of Doug Selby Books

The D.A. Calls It Murder	1937
The D.A. Holds a Candle	1938
The D.A. Draws a Circle	1939
The D.A. Goes to Trial	1940
The D.A. Cooks a Goose	1942
The D.A. Calls a Turn	1944
The D.A. Breaks a Seal	1946
The D.A. Takes a Chance	1948
The D.A. Breaks an Egg	1949

Publication Order of Terry Clane Books

Murder Up My Sleeve	1937
The Case of the Backward Mule	1946

Publication Order of Gramps Wiggins Books

The Case of the Turning Tide	1941
The Case of the Smoking Chimney	1943

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

The Clue of the Forgotten Murder (As Carleton Kendrake)	1935
This Is Murder (As Charles J. Kenny)	1935
The Case of the Musical Cow	1950

Publication Order of Short Story Collections

Two Clues	1947
The Case of the Murderer’s Bride and Other Stories	1969
The Case of the Crimson Kiss	1971
The Case of the Crying Swallow	1971
The Case of the Irate Witness	1972
The Human Zero: The Science Fiction Stories of Erle Stanley Gardner	1981
Whispering Sands	1981
Pay Dirt and Other Whispering Sands Stories	1983

Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books

The Court of Last Resort

1952

About Erle Stanley Gardner

Erle Stanley Gardner (1889 to 1970) was an American author and lawyer, best known for the Perry Mason series of legal detective novels. He also wrote the Cool and Lam private detective novels under the pen name A. A. Fair and the Doug Selby district attorney series, and at the time of his death he was the best-selling American author of the 20th century.

Gardner was born in Malden, Massachusetts, on 17 July 1889 and finished high school in Palo Alto, California, in 1909. He was suspended from Valparaiso University School of Law after about a month, studied law on his own and passed the California bar examination in 1911. As a trial lawyer he defended poor clients, among them Chinese and Mexican immigrants, and from 1921 he practised with a firm in Ventura.

He started writing for pulp magazines in his spare time, publishing his first story in 1921, and at one stage set himself a quota of 1,200,000 words a year. His pulp characters included Lester Leith, a parody of the gentleman thief, and the crusading lawyer Ken Corning, a forerunner of Perry Mason. The first Mason novel, “The Case of the Velvet Claws”, came out in 1933, and Gardner left his law firm that year. The series ran to 82 novels, the last two published after his death.

In 1937 “The D.A. Calls It Murder” opened a companion series that reverses the Mason formula: the hero is the district attorney Doug Selby, and his opponent is the devious defence lawyer A. B. Carr. In 1939, as A. A. Fair, Gardner launched the Cool and Lam novels about the detective agency of Bertha Cool and Donald Lam, beginning with “The Bigger They Come”. A lost Cool and Lam novel written in 1939, “The Knife Slipped”, was first published in 2016.

Warner Bros. made a series of Perry Mason films in the 1930s, and a radio serial ran from 1943 to 1955. The CBS television series starring Raymond Burr began in 1957 and ran until 1966; Gardner made an uncredited appearance as a judge in the final episode.

Gardner also gave much of his time to the Court of Last Resort, a project that reviewed possible miscarriages of justice. His 1952 book about it, “The Court of Last Resort”, won him his only Edgar Award, in the Best Fact Crime category. He wrote a number of travel books about Baja California as well. He died of cancer at his ranch in Temecula, California, on 11 March 1970.

Photo: John Atherton, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons (cropped).