Enter the Saint
Encyclopedia
Enter the Saint is a collection of three interconnected adventure novella
s by Leslie Charteris
first published in the United Kingdom
by Hodder and Stoughton in 1930, followed by an American
edition by The Crime Club
in 1931.
This was the second book featuring the adventures of Charteris' Robin Hood
-inspired anti-hero
, Simon Templar
, alias "The Saint". It followed the 1928 novel, Meet - The Tiger! which introduced the character. In the introduction to a 1983 republishing of Enter the Saint as part of an omnibus collection by Avenel Books, Charteris identifies the three stories in this collection as being the first stories written about Templar (not counting Meet - The Tiger!), although other sources such as the website Saint.org list Enter the Saint as the third Saint book after the novel The Last Hero
(this, however, is not correct as The Last Hero makes direct reference to events in the Enter the Saint stories).
The stories in Enter the Saint mark the first series appearance of Scotland Yard
Inspector Claud Eustace Teal
, a character that Charteris had introduced in the 1929 novel, Daredevil
.
The three novellas in the book are:
In "The Lawless Lady", Patricia Holm states that she and the Saint have been in love for a year,and "The Policeman with Wings" indicates that Templar is 28 years old, which means the events of these stories take place about a year after the events of Meet - The Tiger!. The three stories introduce a cast of supporting characters who make up Templar's team (referred to at one point in this book as "Saints"); only Patricia Holm and Templar's butler, Orace, had appeared in the previous book. The introductions of Roger Conway and Dicky Tremayne, the two operatives featured prominently in this volume, are perfunctory and it is left to the reader to assume that they have a longstanding relationship with the Saint. Several other members of "the Saints" are mentioned briefly, but would make their proper introductions in later books.
The book includes an apparent continuity error. In two of the stories, it is stated that Patricia Holm is on a Mediterranean
cruise (along with one of "The Saints", Norman Kent) during the events of "The Policeman With Wings" and "The Lawless Lady" (suggesting the two stories take place back-to-back), however in the former story Holm makes an appearance at the end and again appears at the beginning of the latter.
In "The Man Who Was Clever", the Saint is described by another character as being South Africa
n as a ruse. The Saint's nationality is never made explicit, though he is fairly obviously English (on screen he has usually been played by British actors, although he has also been portrayed by actors from South Africa, France
, Australia
and the United States
).
Following Enter the Saint, Charteris wrote two full-length novels featuring Templar before returning to the novella form in Featuring the Saint
in 1931. For the next 30 years Charteris would alternate between novel, novella, and short story formats; this would continue after other authors began writing the Saint series in the 1960s.
starring Roger Moore
and first broadcast on 30 January 1964. The basic storyline of the episode, however, is substantially different from the original. This is the earliest Charteris story to be adapted for the TV series.
Enter the Saint was also the title of a BBC Radio
documentary on Simon Templar and Leslie Charteris, broadcast in 1998.http://open.bbc.co.uk/catalogue/infax/programme/LD+98291_8
Novella
A novella is a written, fictional, prose narrative usually longer than a novelette but shorter than a novel. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Nebula Awards for science fiction define the novella as having a word count between 17,500 and 40,000...
s by Leslie Charteris
Leslie Charteris
Leslie Charteris , born Leslie Charles Bowyer-Yin, was a half-Chinese, half English author of primarily mystery fiction, as well as a screenwriter. He was best known for his many books chronicling the adventures of Simon Templar, alias "The Saint."-Early life:Charteris was born to a Chinese father...
first published in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
by Hodder and Stoughton in 1930, followed by an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
edition by The Crime Club
The Crime Club
The Crime Club was an imprint of the Doubleday publishing company, which later spawned a 1946-47 anthology radio series.Many classic and popular works of detective and mystery fiction had their first U.S. editions published via the Crime Club, including all 50 books of The Saint by Leslie Charteris...
in 1931.
This was the second book featuring the adventures of Charteris' Robin Hood
Robin Hood
Robin Hood was a heroic outlaw in English folklore. A highly skilled archer and swordsman, he is known for "robbing from the rich and giving to the poor", assisted by a group of fellow outlaws known as his "Merry Men". Traditionally, Robin Hood and his men are depicted wearing Lincoln green clothes....
-inspired anti-hero
Anti-hero
In fiction, an antihero is generally considered to be a protagonist whose character is at least in some regards conspicuously contrary to that of the archetypal hero, and is in some instances its antithesis in which the character is generally useless at being a hero or heroine when they're...
, Simon Templar
Simon Templar
Simon Templar is a British fictional character known as The Saint featured in a long-running series of books by Leslie Charteris published between 1928 and 1963. After that date, other authors collaborated with Charteris on books until 1983; two additional works produced without Charteris’s...
, alias "The Saint". It followed the 1928 novel, Meet - The Tiger! which introduced the character. In the introduction to a 1983 republishing of Enter the Saint as part of an omnibus collection by Avenel Books, Charteris identifies the three stories in this collection as being the first stories written about Templar (not counting Meet - The Tiger!), although other sources such as the website Saint.org list Enter the Saint as the third Saint book after the novel The Last Hero
The Last Hero (The Saint)
The Last Hero is the title of a mystery novel by Leslie Charteris that was first published in the United Kingdom in 1930 by Hodder and Stoughton and in the United States in 1931 by The Crime Club. The story was initially serialized in 1929 in a British magazine...
(this, however, is not correct as The Last Hero makes direct reference to events in the Enter the Saint stories).
The stories in Enter the Saint mark the first series appearance of Scotland Yard
Scotland Yard
Scotland Yard is a metonym for the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police Service of London, UK. It derives from the location of the original Metropolitan Police headquarters at 4 Whitehall Place, which had a rear entrance on a street called Great Scotland Yard. The Scotland Yard entrance became...
Inspector Claud Eustace Teal
Claud Eustace Teal
Claud Eustace Teal is a fictional character who made many appearances in a series of novels, novellas and short stories by Leslie Charteris entitled The Saint, starting in 1929...
, a character that Charteris had introduced in the 1929 novel, Daredevil
Daredevil (novel)
Daredevil is the title of a mystery novel by Leslie Charteris which was first published by Ward Lock in 1929 . This was Charteris' fourth full-length novel, and is one of the few full-length books in his canon that does not feature the character of Simon Templar, alias "The Saint"...
.
The three novellas in the book are:
- "The Man Who Was Clever": Simon Templar seeks to bring a drug smuggler to justice. In this story, Templar is shown in the process of establishing his reputation as a crime buster working with a team of mysterious individuals (akin to Robin Hood's Merry Men). Patricia HolmPatricia HolmPatricia Holm is the name of a fictional character who appeared in the novels of Leslie Charteris from the 1920s to the 1940s. She was the on-again, off-again girlfriend and partner of Simon Templar, alias "The Saint" and shared a number of his adventures....
, Templar's love interest and fellow adventurer from Meet - The Tiger!, appears briefly in a cameo. - "The Policeman with Wings": A direct follow-up to the above, this story shows Templar's reputation continuing to grow as he and his compatriot Roger Conway investigate two kidnappings connected to a bag of stolen diamonds. This story also features the Saint's first direct dealings with Insp. Claud Eustace Teal, who would become a regular ally/adversary throughout the series. Norman Kent, a member of Templar's group who plays a major role in The Last Hero receives a brief mention.
- "The Lawless Lady": Templar appears only briefly in this story which focuses on one of Templar's agents, Dicky Tremaine, who infiltrates a crime ring intent on some seaside larceny, only to fall in love with its female leader. Although the previous two stories and Meet the Tiger indicate that Templar is not adverse to using deadly force, this is the first Saint story in which Templar is actually shown killing anyone. Most of the story takes place outside of the United Kingdom, the first of what would be many international Saint adventures, although it wouldn't be until "The Wonderful War", a story in the Featuring the SaintFeaturing the SaintFeaturing the Saint is a collection of three mystery novellas by Leslie Charteris, first published in the United Kingdom in 1931 by Hodder and Stoughton. This was the fifth book to feature the adventures of Simon Templar, alias "The Saint". It was the first novella collection to be published since...
collection, that a story would be completely set outside of the country.
In "The Lawless Lady", Patricia Holm states that she and the Saint have been in love for a year,and "The Policeman with Wings" indicates that Templar is 28 years old, which means the events of these stories take place about a year after the events of Meet - The Tiger!. The three stories introduce a cast of supporting characters who make up Templar's team (referred to at one point in this book as "Saints"); only Patricia Holm and Templar's butler, Orace, had appeared in the previous book. The introductions of Roger Conway and Dicky Tremayne, the two operatives featured prominently in this volume, are perfunctory and it is left to the reader to assume that they have a longstanding relationship with the Saint. Several other members of "the Saints" are mentioned briefly, but would make their proper introductions in later books.
The book includes an apparent continuity error. In two of the stories, it is stated that Patricia Holm is on a Mediterranean
Mediterranean Sea
The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean surrounded by the Mediterranean region and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Anatolia and Europe, on the south by North Africa, and on the east by the Levant...
cruise (along with one of "The Saints", Norman Kent) during the events of "The Policeman With Wings" and "The Lawless Lady" (suggesting the two stories take place back-to-back), however in the former story Holm makes an appearance at the end and again appears at the beginning of the latter.
In "The Man Who Was Clever", the Saint is described by another character as being South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
n as a ruse. The Saint's nationality is never made explicit, though he is fairly obviously English (on screen he has usually been played by British actors, although he has also been portrayed by actors from South Africa, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
and the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
).
Following Enter the Saint, Charteris wrote two full-length novels featuring Templar before returning to the novella form in Featuring the Saint
Featuring the Saint
Featuring the Saint is a collection of three mystery novellas by Leslie Charteris, first published in the United Kingdom in 1931 by Hodder and Stoughton. This was the fifth book to feature the adventures of Simon Templar, alias "The Saint". It was the first novella collection to be published since...
in 1931. For the next 30 years Charteris would alternate between novel, novella, and short story formats; this would continue after other authors began writing the Saint series in the 1960s.
Variations
As with other Saint books, many different editions of Enter the Saint have been published over the years, although unlike many early Simon Templar collections, it appears to have never been published under any other title. Not all editions include all three stories. The 1983 Avenel omnibus includes only "The Man Who Was Clever" and "The Lawless Lady", while a 1960s edition by Fiction Publishing Company (an imprint of Doubleday) omits "The Man Who Was Clever"; both despite the fact that the three stories are interconnected. Charteris wrote introductions to both editions, suggesting that he was aware of (and therefore possibly approved or requested) the omissions.Television adaptation
"The Lawless Lady" was adapted as an episode of The SaintThe Saint (TV series)
The Saint was an ITC mystery spy thriller television series that aired in the UK on ITV between 1962 and 1969. It centred on the Leslie Charteris literary character, Simon Templar, a Robin Hood-like adventurer with a penchant for disguise. The character may be nicknamed The Saint because the...
starring Roger Moore
Roger Moore
Sir Roger George Moore KBE , is an English actor, perhaps best known for portraying British secret agent James Bond in seven films from 1973 to 1985. He also portrayed Simon Templar in the long-running British television series The Saint.-Early life:Moore was born in Stockwell, London...
and first broadcast on 30 January 1964. The basic storyline of the episode, however, is substantially different from the original. This is the earliest Charteris story to be adapted for the TV series.
Enter the Saint was also the title of a BBC Radio
BBC Radio
BBC Radio is a service of the British Broadcasting Corporation which has operated in the United Kingdom under the terms of a Royal Charter since 1927. For a history of BBC radio prior to 1927 see British Broadcasting Company...
documentary on Simon Templar and Leslie Charteris, broadcast in 1998.http://open.bbc.co.uk/catalogue/infax/programme/LD+98291_8
External links
- Book review page including reviews of "Policeman with Wings" and "Lawless Lady".