`Saint` stories ghost written by sci fi authors?

[dr_hermes]

Does anyone have any information on who actually wrote these Saint stories:

The Darker Drink (1947) very surreal tale where Simon Templar realizes he`s in the dream of a dying man. Often attributed to Theodore Sturgeon, but this has been disputed.

The Convenient Monster(1959) where Nessie makes a brief but violent appearance. Attibuted to Cleve Cartmill.

 `The Questing Tycoon`, with voodoo and literal zombies. Credited to Harry Harrison, as is `The Man Who Liked Ants`.

 Even allowing for the author`s growth and change, these stories just feel like they were written by a different viewpoint. My instincts as a reader say that Leslie Charteris withdrew from writing the Saint books at some time after WWII. In his introductions to the 1960s reprints, he still has that distinctive, bantering use of language that marked his early books...but that voice is missing from the later stories themselves.

Anyone have any information on this/

[Exapno_Mapcase]

I didn’t find any confirmation of this in the Encyclopedia Mysteriosa by William L. DeAndrea.

All it says about ghostwriters is that “all the Saint books [except one] from 1967 to the end of the series were the work of other hands, most usually Fleming Lee and Norman Worker, sometimes with a final revision by Charteris.”

The Encyclopedia of Mystery and Detection says essentially the same thing.

Both imply that Charteris wrote all his stories himself.

And the FAQ page at www.saint.org says:

4. Weren’t some Saint books written by other writers?
   Yes… and no. Knowing that The Saint would probaby continue on after his death (as have Sherlock Holmes, Raffles, James Bond, and other literary characters), Leslie Charteris decided to collaborate with other writers while he was still alive. This way, he could not only share in any monetary gains, but he could also comment on, direct, plot, edit, amend, rewrite, and otherwise put some genuine Charteris polish on the continuing adventures of The Saint. These collaborations include the last 14 English language Saint titles dated from 1964 to 1983, and the 40 French adventures.

It’s certainly true that many pulp stories by many authors were the product of ghosts, and some sf writers did move back and forth between genres, but I haven’t heard anything related to the Saint before. Where are these attributions you mention coming from?

BTW, Three of the Ellery Queen mysteries were written by science fiction authors Avram Davidson and Theodore Sturgeon. That’s the only confirmed case I can think of for a truly major author.

[dr_hermes]

The clip below is from the rec.arts.mystery newsgroup, although Ive seen it mentioned elsewhere. Clever Cartmill is a slightly obscure author to be named as a ghost for Charteris, although perhaps he was known for filling in for other writers, especially on long running series. (The stories with the fantasy elements certainly read as if they were written by someone other than Leslie Chartreris; The Darker Drink` in particular has a use of language that is very different and I could see why Ted Sturgeon would come to mind:

mike weber (krasnegar@mindspring.com)
Subject: Re: Fantasy/Science Fiction settings for Mystery novels?
Newsgroups: rec.arts.mystery
At least three of the “Leslie Charteris” Saint short stories/novellas are fantasy or sf, (one only slightly, one totally so – to the extent that if it hadn’t been total fantasy, there could never have been another Saint story).
A friend who is very knowledgeable in the ways of pulp fiction tells me that the three were actually not written by Charteris himself, but rather by another, during a period when Charteris’s name was a sort of “house name” at a pulp publisher.
The three stories are:
“The Convenient Monster” is the least sf/fantasy of the three – Simon suspects intended foul play among scientists attempting to study either Nessie or a similar lake monster in Scotland. All of the sf/fantasy element is in the last page/paragraph twist ending.
“The Man Who Liked Ants” – possibly inspired by or an inspiration of the movie “THEM”. Rides the borderline with horror fiction.
“='It looks like a fire.” she said interestedly. ‘Yes, it does,’ said Simon.="
And the one that is 100% fantasy – “Dawn”. Simon, as he so often does, bets involved in someone else’s problems. The trouble is, something seems rather unrealistic about the whole adventure.
And then he finds himself on the wrong end of a gun…
According to my source, all three were actually written by Cleve Cartmill, the man who wrote the piece that almost got “Astounding” pulled off the newsstands when he predicted, in the middle of World War 2 and while the Manhattan District was in full swing, exactly how an enriched-uranium atomic bomb would work…
– <mike weber> <krasnegar@mindspring.com>
Ambitious Incomplete web site: http://weberworld.virtualave.net

[RealityChuck]

The names are given in “The Science Fiction Book of Lists,” but I don’t have my copy handy.

[Ukulele_Ike]

Wow! IS THIS a cool thread or what? Are all you Buffy Tolkien threadstarters paying attention, here?

Lemme see…the three Ellery Queen stories Mapcase refers to are the early '60s novels The Player on the Other Side, The Fourth Side of the Triangle, and…damn, what IS the other one?

[Exapno_Mapcase]

And on the Eighth Day

[dr_hermes]

The clip below was posted January 1, 2000 on the Saint newsgroup. (By the way, many of the later Michael Shayne mysteries were not written by Davis Dresser, the original Bret Halliday.The only real difference with the Saint stories is that Leslie Charteris was not a house name like Kenneth Robeson.)
clip follows:
I’m attempting to compile a bibliography of the Science Fiction/Fantasy writer Theodore Sturgeon and in searching through back issues of David Langford’s British Fanzine ‘Ansible’ I found the following:
'Theodore Sturgeon, I learned only when Leslie
Charteris died this year, ghosted the oddest of all the Saint stories: The Darker Drink´ (1947) -- retitled Dawn´ in the 1949 "Saint Errant."´
(from Ansible No 73, August 1993)
http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/SF-Archives/Ansible/a73.html
Do you know if this is true? Paul Williams (who is issuing 8 to 10 volumes of the Complete Stories of Theodore Sturgeon) has his doubts. Any information you can give will be greatly appreciated.
Regards,
Bill Seabrook
England

[dr_hermes]

The clip below was posted January 1, 2000 on the Saint newsgroup. (By the way, many of the later Michael Shayne mysteries were not written by Davis Dresser, the original Bret Halliday.The only real difference with the Saint stories is that Leslie Charteris was not a house name like Kenneth Robeson.)
clip follows:
I’m attempting to compile a bibliography of the Science Fiction/Fantasy writer Theodore Sturgeon and in searching through back issues of David Langford’s British Fanzine ‘Ansible’ I found the following:
'Theodore Sturgeon, I learned only when Leslie
Charteris died this year, ghosted the oddest of all the Saint stories: The Darker Drink´ (1947) -- retitled Dawn´ in the 1949 "Saint Errant."´
(from Ansible No 73, August 1993)
http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/SF-Archives/Ansible/a73.html
Do you know if this is true? Paul Williams (who is issuing 8 to 10 volumes of the Complete Stories of Theodore Sturgeon) has his doubts. Any information you can give will be greatly appreciated.
Regards,
Bill Seabrook
England

[LurkMeister]

*Originally posted by RealityChuck *
**The names are given in “The Science Fiction Book of Lists,” but I don’t have my copy handy. **

Assuming you are referring to the 1982 book by Maxim Jakubowski & Malcolm Edwards, my copy surfaced recently, so I can quote the following from it:

It is not widely known that many of the novels published under the “Ellery Queen” name are not the work of Frederick Dannay and Manfred Lee, whose pseudonym it originally was. At first it was thought that only some of the minor novels, published as paperback originals, were ghosted; more recently it has emerged that some of the more famous recent titles, featuring the detective Ellery Queen, were also by other hands. An uncertain number of Leslie Charteris’s “Saint” novels are also ghosted. The following are the work of well-known SF writers.

Ellery Queen novels:

1. And on the Eighth Day (by Avram Davidson - features Ellery Queen)
2. Four Men Called John (by Jack Vance)
3. The Fourth Side of the Triangle (by Avram Davidson - features Ellery Queen)
4. The Madman Theory (by Jack Vance)
5. The Player on the Other Side (by Theodore Sturgeon - features Ellery Queen)
6. A Room to Die In (by Jack Vance)
7. A Study in Terror (by Paul W. Fairman)

Leslie Charteris novel:
Vendetta for the Saint (by Harry Harrison)

While this confirms (and expands on) the Ellery Queen ghost books, it seems to only muddy the waters on the Leslie Charteris matter. It should be noted that “The SF Book of Lists” was published 20 years ago and that the authors provide no sources or cites for their information. Also, they are only concerned with SF writers.

[Exapno_Mapcase]

Vendetta for the Saint came out in 1964, the last true Saint novel before the novelizations of tv shows started in 1967 that the Encyclopedias list as ghostwritten.

But the Saint web site lists 1964 as the start of the ghostwritten material. It may have been referring to this book. Yes, checking further, it says that this was a collaboration on the Novels page.

Note that all these sources just talk about the Saint novels, not the shorter pieces that were carried in the Saint Mystery [or Detective] Magazine, which is what presumably the OP referred to.

Placing Leslie Charteris Cleve Cartmill into Google, turns up another issue of Ansible, from March 2001:

Ghost Stories. Hot from arguing by geometric logic that the Leslie Charteris thriller The Saint Sees It Through (1946) was ghosted by Theodore Sturgeon, pulp sleuth David Pringle now reckons that The Saint Steps In (1943) bears the fingerprints of sf author Cleve Cartmill (now chiefly remembered for his 1944 atom-bomb story `Deadline’).

That reference led me to the February 2001 Ansible:

Leslie Charteris notoriously had some of his Saint stories ghosted by sf authors (including Henry Kuttner and Harry Harrison). Now David Pringle argues on stylistic grounds that the 1946 `Charteris’ novel The Saint Sees It Through is actually the work of Theodore Sturgeon.

Note the dr hermes Ansible find above.

But dr, are you neglecting your own site for info?

The Dr. Hermes web site has this on “The Convenient Monster”

Along with “The Man Who Liked Ants”, this story has been attributed to Cleve Cartmill. He gives us an older, wearier Saint who has become tired of being recognized and wishes he could put his notorious past behind him. (“Simon Templar should have been hardened to that kind of scrutiny, but as the years went on it was beginning to cause him a mixture of embarassment and petty irrittion.”) I wonder if there was ever a story where the Saint faked his own death and started over under a new identity? If so, it didn’t last.

and

“The Man Who Liked Ants” was actually written by Cleve Cartmill, and (although Leslie Charteris usually edited and kept an eye on his ghost writers), he doesn’t quite capture the flippant banter and love of wordplay Simon Templar normally has. There’s nothing actually contradictory here - the Saint doesn’t eat a hot dog at a baseball game or collect Elvis paintings on black velvet or anything like that-- but he’s not exactly himself either. (He’s packing a gun for one thing.) He could easily be any generalized adventure hero. I wouldn’t be surprised if Cartmill had this story worked out and just put a few details in to sell it as a Saint story.

Nothing on the Questing Tycoon, though.

[Exapno_Mapcase]

Odd, I copied the link for the Dr. Hermes but it’s not the right page. Try the next page instead.

http://community-2.webtv.net/drhermes/ForbiddenKnowledge/page7.html