Who is the best-selling American author of all time?
Erle Stanley Gardner July 17th – It’s the birthday of American mystery writer Erle Stanley Gardner, born in Malden, Massachusetts (1889). He wrote over eighty mystery novels featuring the brilliant lawyer, Perry Mason. He was the best-selling American author of all time. He sold over 200 million copies of his books, and at the peak of his success he sold about 26,000 books a day. Gardner was kicked out of Valparaiso University after getting into a fistfight in his first semester. He went to work as a typist in a law office in California. He read so much of what he typed that he decided to take the bar exam. He passed it without any classes, at age twenty-two. He went to work for a corporate law firm in Oxnard, California, and he defended poor Chinese and Mexican immigrants. He worked in law for twenty-two years, and he often wrote on the side. He became a popular contributor to Black Mask Magazine. They liked stories with Oriental heroes and villains, so he came up with many adventures
