Sunday 3 March 2013

2013 - The Saint is Back

There are a handful of fictional creations who can truly be called immortal, characters who have escaped the confines set by their creators and live a life of their own. It is a select group and perhaps every author dreams of creating characters that will gain membership of this exclusive club.It's not easy to get a membership card but the membership is varied - Dracula belongs there, as does Sherlock Holmes, James Bond and Tarzan.

 Another card carrying member of this club  is Simon Templar AKA The Saint, that gentleman rogue created by Leslie Charteris when he was just twenty years old.

There's a lot happening in the world of The Saint at the moment with the character being at his most active in many years - not only is there a new TV series currently filming, (well a pilot at least but here at the Archive we have faith it will go to a full series) but the original books are being reissued by Hodder & Stoughton on their Mulholland Books imprint. The series of reprints,both paperback and eBook, are being put together under the watchful eye of series editor, Ian Dickerson and each book will feature and all new introduction - I've written the intro for one of the reprints though I'm not sure yet which book my intro will appear in, but rest assured I am deeply honored to be included.

The books have started to appear in bookshops now as well as being available from most online sellers, and this weekend I picked up The Saint Closes the Case which features an entertaining intro from Steve Baille. The publishers have done a great job with these new editions - they look both retro and strikingly modern at the same time -  their uniform design means that the whole set will look great together, and give any home library a touch of nostalgic cool.

So if you are new to the Saint or simply want to replace those battered old paperbacks then now is the perfect time to get down with  the old stickman.


Expect a full review of The Saint Closes the Case on the Archive later this week.

4 comments:

David Cranmer said...

Love those short stories by Charteris. (Glad Templar is returning. I've been waiting.)

Brian Drake said...

This is exciting to read! I finally started reading The Saint a couple of years ago, only to learn that, unless one buys on-line, the old books are tough to find. Now I'll just wait for the set of reprints.

By the way, I found Charteris and Templar such a breath of fresh air and they inspired my character Steve Dane, in The Rogue Gentleman, and, Gary, I couldn't help but notice that you used a combination of those words to describe Templar.

Ray said...

But why have they started the series with Number Two? Seems that there are no plans to re-issue the first Saint novel.

Cesar Castellanos said...

Finally, is very exciting to know the saint is back, i´ve been waiting for a long time, because this Leslie Charteris stories are really hard to find this days.

Cesar Castellanos

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