Erle Stanley Gardner Malden Massachusetts

From Writer's Almanac today:

Today is the birthday of American author Erle Stanley Gardner, the creator of smooth-talking criminal lawyer Perry Mason, born in Malden, Massachusetts (1889). He became a typist at a law firm, soaking up legal terminology and trial tactics. With no formal training, he passed the California bar exam and joined a law firm. He found legal practice boring, though. He began writing stories about the people he represented and the things he saw at trial for pulp magazines. Gardner's stories quickly became popular and he churned out more than 20,000 during his career, giving up his two-fingered typing and dictating to a series of secretaries.

When asked why his heroes always defeated villains with the last bullet in their guns, Gardner answered: "At three cents a word, every time I say 'Bang' in the story I get three cents. If you think I'm going to finish the gun battle while my hero still has 15 cents' worth of unexploded ammunition in his gun, you're nuts."

Early characters included Lester Leith, a parody of the "gentleman thief," and Ken Corning, a crusading lawyer who became the template for Perry Mason. Gardner's first novel to feature Mason was The Case of the Velvet Claws (1933), which established Mason's MO: he proved his client's innocence by implicating another character, who soon confessed.