Charteris

The “Colecção Vampiro”, published from 1947 by Editora Livros do Brasil, in Lisbon, was one of the very fist series of Crime Fiction paperbacks in Portuguese. It was certainly the most popular. The “Masters of detective fiction” published there showed a large emphasis on English and American authors. The notoriety of the authors seemed of rather more importance than a clear definition of the sub-genre of crime Fiction the books pertained to. Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers appeared alongside Hammett and Chandler; Wallace with Simenon; Van Dine with Ellery Queen. The latter, and the likes of Erle Stanley Gardner were the most represented. While a close contemporary of Gallimard’s “Série Noire” (created in 1945) Vampiro was editorially much closer to Le Masque (Librarie des Champs Elysées, 1927). Vampiro favoured novels of deduction and investigation over hardboiled noir. Continue reading →

Simon Templar, aka “The Saint”, the character created in 1928 by Leslie Charteris (British author Leslie Charles Bowyer-Yin, 1907-1983) soon became immensely popular. His adventures were published by Hodder & Stoughton, under the famous yellow jackets. They spread to continental Europe in the early thirties. They were so popular in France at the time, that translations were not enough. To meet the demand of the public, apocryphal stories of “Le Saint” were written directly in French (by translators Edmond and Madeleine Michel- Tyl ) . After the war his popularity would be supported by film and television adaptations. Again, there would be in France, alongside the official, international production, domestic films with the Saint played by famous French actors : Félix Marten (in Le Saint mène la danse by Jacques Nahum, 1959 ) and Jean Marais ( Le Saint prend l’affût, Christian-Jaque, 1966) Continue reading →