Bill,
Re your question below:
> Can anyone point me in the direction of a source
as
> to why Gardner changed
> Mason into a "softer" character between Velvet
Claws
> and Sulky Girl, and
> then, in my view, softened him a bit more where
he
> became close to the icon
> Mason in Lucky Legs.
Gardner gradually softened the character in part to make him
more palatable to the editors of SATURDAY EVENING POST, to
whom he was anxious to seel the serial rights to the Mason
novels (after the early
'50s, perhaps earlier, virtually all Mason novels were
serialized in the POST prior to book publication.
Sources you might want to check are Dorothy Hughes's Gardner
bio, THE CASE OF THE REAL PERRY MASON I thin it's called.
Another book that might help, but which I haven't read and
can't personally recommend, is called MURDER IN THE MILLIONS,
a study of the three best-selling mystery writers, Gardner,
Mickey Spillane, and Ian Fleming. I can't remember the name
of the writer.
JIM DOHERTY
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