Erle Stanley Gardner (July 17, 1889 – March 11, 1970) was an American author and lawyer, best known for the Perry Mason series of legal detective stories.

Gardner also wrote numerous other novels and shorter pieces as well as a series of nonfiction books, mostly narrations of his travels through Baja California and other regions in Mexico.

In 1921, he returned to law as a member of the Ventura firm Sheridan, Orr, Drapeau, and Gardner,[4] where he remained until the publication of his first Perry Mason novel in 1933.

[11] He created many series characters for the pulps, including the ingenious Lester Leith, a parody of the "gentleman thief" in the tradition of A. J. Raffles; and Ken Corning, crusading lawyer, crime sleuth, and archetype for his most successful creation, Perry Mason.

Rogers is famous for his defense of, and attorney-client disagreement with, Clarence Darrow, a fellow attorney who was charged with attempted jury bribery in 1912.

[15] Much of the first Perry Mason novel,The Case of the Velvet Claws, published in 1933, is set at the historic Pierpont Inn near Gardner's old law office in Ventura, California.

Prosecutor Selby is portrayed as a courageous and imaginative crime solver; his antagonist Carr is a wily shyster whose clients are invariably "as guilty as hell."

[16] Gardner had a lifelong fascination with Baja California and wrote a series of nonfiction travel accounts describing his extensive explorations of the peninsula by boat, truck, airplane, and helicopter.

Gardner devoted thousands of hours to the Court of Last Resort, in collaboration with his many friends in the forensic, legal, and investigative communities.

The project sought to review and, when appropriate, reverse miscarriages of justice against criminal defendants who had been convicted because of poor legal representation, abuse, misinterpretation of forensic evidence, or careless or malicious actions of police or prosecutors.

The resulting 1952 book earned Gardner his only Edgar Award, in the Best Fact Crime category,[23] and was later made into a TV series, The Court of Last Resort.

[9] His death followed by five days that of William Hopper, who played private detective Paul Drake in the Perry Mason TV series.

The Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin holds Gardner's manuscripts, art collection, and personal effects.

From 1972 to 2010, the Ransom Center featured a full-scale reproduction of Gardner's study that displayed original furnishings, personal memorabilia, and artifacts.

[34] An unspecified article that Gardner wrote for True magazine is referred to by William S. Burroughs in his 1959 novel, Naked Lunch.

[36] In 2001, Huell Howser Productions, in association with KCET, Los Angeles, featured Gardner's Temecula Rancho del Paisano in California's Gold.