The Best of the Saint, Vol. 1 [Paperback]

Leslie Charteris (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 11, 2008

'I am the Saint - you may have heard of me. Just a twentieth-century privateer. In my small way I try to put right a few of the things that are wrong with this cock-eyed world' Simon Templar, aka the Saint. On the side of the law and yet outside it, the Saint, exciting, debonair and very slightly disreputable, lives for adventure. Here he is at his ebullient best, spreading terror among London's drug dealers, rescuing a lady crook from distress and much, much more. Introduced by Ken Follett, this sparkling collection of the very best of the earlier stories includes The Lawless Lady and The Elusive Ellshaw.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Leslie Charteris was born in Singapore and moved to England in 1919. He left Cambridge University early when his first novel was accepted for publication. He wrote novels about the Saint throughout his life becoming, alongside Agatha Christie and Ian Fleming, one of the 20th century's most prolific and popular authors.

Product Details

• Paperback: 800 pages
• Publisher: Hodder Pb (December 11, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 034096362X
• ISBN-13: 978-0340963623
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5 x 2.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,004,505 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars 35-year pot-pourri, December 18, 2008

By 

Paul Magnussen (Campbell, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The Best of the Saint, Vol. 1 (Paperback)

As is usually the case with "Best of" compilations, this two-volume anthology should more properly be called "A Representative Selection of"; although I'm glad to see that none of the inferior wartime Saint stories is included, and that this set does also at least contain genuine Charteris stories, and not the later pot-boilers written by ghost-writers under Charteris's name.

It's always seemed to me that if you like the Saint stories enough to read more than a couple of them, it's worth starting at the beginning and reading them in the right order (as described in my So You'd Like To... Guide). Otherwise, you miss so much: to take just one example, the references in "The Simon Templar Foundation" to Rayt Marius (villain of The Last Hero and Knight Templar) will be meaningless to you.

However, if anthologies such as this are more to your taste, then I would say that the stories in Vol. 1 (which are earlier) are generally better than those in Vol. 2 (with the notable exception of "The Golden Journey" in the latter).

Here's what you get in Vol. 1:

The entirety of #02 Enter the Saint (1930)
• The Man Who Was Clever
• The Policeman with Wings
• The Lawless Lady
From #08 The Holy Terror (1932)
• The Inland Revenue
From #12 The Misfortunes of Mr. Teal (1934)
• The Art of Alibi
• The Simon Templar Foundation
From #14 The Saint Goes on (1934)
• The High Fence
• The Elusive Ellshaw
From #21 The Happy Highwayman (1939)
• The Charitable Countess
• The Star Producers
From #20 Follow the Saint (1939)
• The Miracle Tea Party
• The Affair of Hogsbotham

Ken Follett's brief Foreword is to the point, and shows that he has at least read the books; which is more than Sir Roger Moore's (to Volume 2) does.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A great new Charteris collection of The Saint, December 11, 2008

By 

D. Bodenheimer (California) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Best of the Saint, Vol. 1 (Paperback)

Leslie Charteris started writing about The Saint 80 years ago, and his long-time British publisher, Hodder & Stoughton, has come out with this great 2-volume set of stories to commemorate that achievement. There has been a long drought of new titles and collections, and I'm really pleased to see this great starter kit for anyone interested in learning more about the modern day Robin Hood: Simon Templar, alias The Saint!