I'm a big fan of the early mystery/crime pulps. Although the quality of the writing in the magazines was highly inconsistent, there were some truly gifted authors who got their start within those pages (including Cornell Woolrich, John D. MacDonald , Dashiell Hammett, Robert Arthur, and Erle Stanley Gardner, to name a few). I plan to make more videos featuring some of those authors. Thanks for watching!

Used paperback versions of Perry Mason mysteries can occasionally be found in bulk on eBay for around $3-5 per book. Kindle editions might also be available on Amazon for $1-3 during sale periods. I hope you can find them.

I agree. I spent a summer in my youth watching reruns of the original Raymond Burr series. The TV station would run 2 or 3 episodes back-to-back every weekday morning, so by the end of the summer, I had seen a large part of the entire series.

That's how most people remember him I think.

Thanks for your comment! I think you might have misinterpreted my description of Perry. I definitely consider him 'gray' in his actions (particularly in the early books), but his motives are aimed at exonerating his (innocent) clients, so he'd fall on the brighter side for me too. He does show some flashes of unprincipled aggression or vindictiveness in the earliest books, but they're brief, inconsequential and don't really show up again in the series.

They're one of my favorite movie couples!

Thanks! I'm so glad you found it helpful. I'm looking forward to the second season of the HBO series. I hope it stays true to the feel of the early books.

Thanks! In the video, I might have oversimplified Della's transformation. She certainly doesn't become a useless lump. It's disappointing, though, that she starts out as a strong and savvy character and then fades somewhat into the background or becomes more of a tool to forward the plot in later books. The HBO series portrays Della as an even stronger foil to Perry than Gardner originally wrote her, which I thought was a good choice, given how flawed Perry is in the show. If you're going to sample only one Perry Mason book, I wouldn't start with the first one, The Case of the Velvet Claws. Although it provides some of the best examples of early, flawed Mason and strong, savvy Della, it doesn't hew to the typical story formula. Notably, there's no final courtroom scene. Instead, you might start with the second book, The Case of the Sulky Girl, or skip ahead to book four, The Case of the Howling Dog. Up next in my video to-do list is a retrospective of Gnome Press, the pioneering publisher of early SF. Stay tuned!

The HBO series is really good 🙂

@@angelaholmes8888 must check it out! Didn’t even know it was on!

Thanks for the vote of confidence! I'm very happy with how quickly my channel has grown in a little over a year, but I'm also somewhat frustrated with KZfaq's recommendation algorithm, which caters to niche channels that focus narrowly on specific genres of books (making it easier for the algorithm to identify the target audience for a channel). In my case, though, I enjoy many different book genres and I'm trying to make videos that appeal to a diverse mix of audiences. That has the unfortunate effect of confusing the algorithm because it can't identify a typical viewer profile for my channel, leading it to limit how often it recommends my videos to new viewers. I'm exploring the possibility of adding a podcast at some point. In the meantime, I hope to record some classic stories as audiobooks and make them available here on the channel. Regarding Perry Mason, I'm enjoying season two of the HBO series, but not as much as the first season. Like you, I wish the show would focus less on the characters' personal lives and more on the mystery and Perry's knack for legal procedure and courtroom theatrics. The original books provide almost no character backstory or development for Perry, Della and Paul, so it's understandable that HBO would want to remedy that. Unfortunately, I think they've pushed the pendulum too far in that direction, making the series feel bloated with filler material to pad the plot.

I agree. I just started watching the second season and I'm curious to see what direction they take the character -- leaning into his pulpy origins or giving him more of a moral purpose as a fighter for justice (which is what the author, Erle Stanley Gardner, was in real life).

Thanks! To my knowledge, they won’t start entering the public domain for another 6-7 years. You can probably find bulk lots of Perry Mason paperback editions from the 1950s-1970s relatively cheaply on eBay.

You can find many of them at Open Library, a free, nonprofit, online lending library.

Thanks for the suggestion! Yes, I enjoy classic mysteries and pulpy crime fiction, and I plan to feature more of those authors in the future, including Spillane. John D. MacDonald is likely to be the next crime author I feature in a video. KZfaq's algorithm gets confused when I focus on multiple genres, so I'm expanding my non-SFF content slowly but steadily.

I have mixed feelings about the second season, and my negative thoughts are mostly related to the significant departures the writers and producers made from the original books. In the first season, the focus is on Perry, and as I noted in my video, his portrayal is quite close to how Gardner originally conceived the character, although the HBO show invented his backstory largely from scratch. In the second season, though, Della and Paul become a (if not the) primary focus, which is not at all how Gardner wrote the books. Even in the earliest books, where Della is portrayed as highly competent and not just window dressing, she is clearly Perry's assistant, and it's Perry who ultimately gets the job done with small assists from Paul. The pivotal courtroom scene in season two where Della cross examines a hostile witness was well-written, but it _never_ would have happened in the books (and not just because Della lacks training as a lawyer in the books). Also, Perry himself is badly abused by the writers in this latest season. Part of Perry's mythic status within the books is that he doesn't lose cases, even ones that seem unwinnable, and he'd never end up in jail himself. Thus, season two didn't really feel like a Perry Mason story to me. However, if I set aside my expectations of what constitutes a Perry Mason story and simply evaluate the season on its own merits as if it had no connection to its original source material, then most of my reservations about it disappear.

@@thelibraryladder well I'll be damned. Thankyou so much for taking the time to reply with this 💚🤌. Very valid points that I'll take into consideration as I've not read the books the series is based out off ✌️

If you're asking how many Perry Mason books Gardner published, the number is 82.

I was pleasantly surprised by how good the recent HBO adaptation is. Casting Welsh actor (Matthew Rhys) as Perry seemed counterintuitive at first, but he did a very nice job with the role (and likely better than Robert Downey, Jr., who was originally slated to play the part, but stepped down due to other movie commitments).

@@thelibraryladder yes Matthew is great as perry

I've never heard _that_ comparison before. Thanks (I think)! :)

@@thelibraryladder I think the Free association my brain was trying to make is JM character in Mad Men resembles a gritty Perry Mason, not suave TV Perry Mason played by R Burr !I think !😳🐾😁

[chuckle] _Now_ I get the comparison! I was a little worried _I_ was being compared to Don Draper. :) Jon Hamm would make an ideal Perry Mason. He has the sturdy, imposing build, necessary gruffness, and subtle craftiness to fit Gardner's description. Great casting suggestion (although I think Matthew Rhys did an admirable job in the recent HBO series)!

@@thelibraryladder ok! You’re so persuasive , I started watching New PM on HBO, not suave but PM is a Columbo PI type character ( my first impression) keeping tuned, right of the bat he makes reference to literature, Lipstick Girl ( I’d never heard of this one but , interesting anyways! Thank you again for being a catalyst!

You're welcome! The HBO adaptation is an origin story for Perry that takes more than a few liberties embellishing his backstory, since Gardner never provided much information about the character's history in his books. However, the way the character is written in the show, and the high degree of self-assurance, scrappiness and aggression portrayed by Matthew Rhys in the role, are consistent with the early books in the series. Rhys is a little too small to fit the physical description of Perry, but he makes up for it with his feistiness. As an aside, the show was executive produced by Robert Downey, Jr., who also was originally slated to play the role of Perry. He had to drop out due to other film commitments, allowing Matthew Rhys to play the role. I have a hard time imagining Downey in the role, and I'm glad Rhys got it instead. It's my understanding that a second season of the show is currently in production, so there's more to come.