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Leslie Charteris was one of the famous authors of Britain who used to write novels based on the Culinary, mystery and Thriller genres. He was born as Leslie Charles Bowyer-Yin on May 12, 1907 in Singapore. Leslie is famous as an author of adventure fiction and as a screenwriter. The most popular works of Leslie as an author are the novels chronicling around the adventures of the famous fictional character named Simon Templar or The Saint. Leslie was of the British-Chinese descent as his father was a Chinese citizen named Dr. S. C. Yin, while his mother, Lydia Florence Bowyer was from England. It was believed that his father was able to trace back his lineage to the emperors of the Shang Dynasty. Leslie became interested in writing novels from a very young age. He was so passionate about writing during his school days that he had created his own magazine with short stories, poems, articles, serials, comic strips and editorials. As a child, Leslie completed his school education from the Rossall School situated in Fleetwood, Lancashire, England. The first book written by him was accepted during the first year of his college studies in the King’s College at the Cambridge University. After that, he left his college studies for a full time career and never looked back.

Leslie was more motivated with a desire to become financially strong in order to be unconventional in his approach and do whatever he liked to do. Hence, he used to work at various jobs along with writing English thriller novels. The long list of jobs that he did include shipping on a freighter, working as a barman, diving for the search of pearls, working in a tin mine, on a rubber plantation as well as working as a bus driver and as a goldsmith. In the year 1962, Leslie changed his last name legally as Charteris after being inspired by Colonel Francis Charteris. However, in an interview given to the BBC Radio 4, his daughter had said that he had selected the last name from a telephone directory. Leslie moved to the United States in the year 1932 and continued publishing his short stories. Later, he joined the Paramount Pictures as a writer and worked on the film Midnight Club directed by George Raft. Even after working for a few years in the United States, he was not able to acquire a permanent residence as the Chinese Exclusion Act prevented him from doing so. Therefore, he was forced to renew his visitor’s visa continuously after six months. However, he was later granted the permanent residency by the Congress. Leslie went on to write over 100 books revolving around The Saint. After that, he stopped writing further novels in the series, but other authors continued to contribute in the series. The series became one of the longest running series from a single author as author Leslie Charteris spent 55 years working on the series. He equalled Agatha Christie in this feat. Apart from writing fiction novels, Leslie also wrote a cuisine column for one of the American magazines. He is also said to have invented a pictorial and wordless sign language called Paleneo, and went on to write a book on it. His successful writing career allowed him to become an early member of Mensa. Leslie married the Hollywood actress Audrey Long in the year 1952, along with whom he returned to England and lived in Surrey. Leslie died on April 15, 1993 in Windsor, Berkshire at the age of 85 and is survived by his wife and a daughter named Patricia.

One of the initial novels written by author Leslie Charteris in the Simon Templar series was titled ‘The Avenging Saint’. This novel was published by the Ace Books publishing house in the year 1930. The plot of this novel is set in the United Kingdom and features Simon Templar as The Saint. In the opening plot of the novel, Simon gets involved in a thrilling adventure at the start of his young career. An American munitions heiress named, Sonia Delmar is shown as taking a bit of chocolate, which is drugged. Sonia is depicted in the novel as a very beautiful lady and adding drug in her chocolate was meant to kidnap her. The kidnappers begin to blackmail in order to cause an international turmoil, which was already prevalent in the vulnerable Europe during the 1930s. The Saint has the support of powerful and strong men like Roger Conway and Sir Issac Lessing. With the help of these men, Simon tries to save Sonia Delmar from the hands of the kidnappers and stop the international turmoil. However, his adversaries also seem to be equally powerful.

Among the enemies are Rayt Marius, who is known to sacrifice the lives of millions of people fro his own benefit; Prince Rudolph, who thinks of himself as the new Napoleon; and an agent of the Kremlin named Vassilov. The Saint is required to conquer these men in order to be able to save Sonia Delmar and succeed in his motive. One of the other initial novels of the Simon Templar series was titled ‘Alias the Saint’. It was published by the Carroll & Graf publishing house in the year 1931. The plot of this novel too continues to deal with the life of Simon Templar as The Saint. In the opening sequence of the plot of this novel, Simon Templar disguises himself as a professor named Smith-Smyth-Smythe from Timbuctoo and visits the English countryside as he had heard that the guests get cheerful hospitality on their welcome in the countryside. However, as soon as he registers himself for staying at the Beacon Inn hotel, he gets drugged and is treated very miserably. The kidnappers were aware of the fact that professor Smith-Smyth-Smythe was an alias of Simon Templar, The Saint and therefore, he was dealt with such disdain. Now, he is required to figure a way to escape quickly otherwise his adversaries might cause more damage to him, by treating him even more disgracefully. The novel was received with great appreciations by the readers as well as the critics. Although, unlike the previous novels, this novel showed the struggle of Simon Templar, it did not bring down the enthusiasm of the readers. This motivated author Leslie to write a number of other novels in the series. The success of this novel also helped him to establish himself as a noteworthy novelist.

One Response to “Leslie Charteris”

1. P Daniel: 6 years ago

   What about the book he wrote to make learning Spanish easy? When was that published?

   Reply