Erle Stanley Gardner's Birthday

[Love Is Murder Conference]

July 17 was Erle Stanley Gardner's birthday (1889). He studied law on his own and passed the bar at age 21. Working as a lawyer wasn't enough to keep him busy so he began writing detective fiction for pulp magazines. In 1933 he published The Case of the Velvet Claws, his first Perry Mason novel, and went on to write 80 more -- writing 4,000 words a day, even while practicing as a lawyer -- which have sold over 300 million copies worldwide.