[1] His novels featuring the fictional Chinese American detective Charlie Chan were adapted into popular films made in the United States and China.

[3] The novel was also adapted into two films with different titles, House of the Long Shadows and Haunted Honeymoon, but they had essentially equivalent plots.

[citation needed] On the day that his first novel was accepted for publication, Biggers proposed to Eleanor Ladd, his girlfriend and fellow writer at the Boston Traveller, and they married in 1914; one year later, his son Robert was born.

The popularity of Charlie Chan extended even to China, where audiences in Shanghai appreciated the Hollywood films.

[5] Derr Biggers publicly acknowledged the real-life detective Chang Apana as the inspiration for the character of Charlie Chan in his letter to the Honolulu Advertiser of June 28, 1932.