The Saint has many partners, though none last throughout the series. For the first half until the late 1940s, the most recurrent is Patricia Holm, his girlfriend, who was introduced in the first story, the 1928 novel Meet the Tiger, in which she shows herself a capable adventurer. Holm appeared erratically throughout the series, sometimes disappearing for books at a time. Templar and Holm lived together in a time when common-law relationships were uncommon and, in some areas, illegal. Burl Barer's history of the Saint identifies two manuscripts that to date have not been published. The first is a collaboration between Charteris and Fleming Lee called Bet on the Saint that was rejected by Doubleday, the American publishers of the Saint series. Charteris, Barer writes, chose not to submit it to his United Kingdom publishers, Hodder & Stoughton. The rejection of the manuscript by Doubleday meant that The Crime Club's long-standing right of first refusal on any new Saint works was now ended and the manuscript was then submitted to other United States publishers, without success. Barer also tells of a 1979 novel titled The Saint's Lady by a Scottish fan, Joy Martin, which had been written as a present for and as a tribute to Charteris. Charteris was impressed by the manuscript and attempted to get it published, but it too was ultimately rejected. The manuscript, which according to Barer is in the archives of Boston University, features the return of Patricia Holm. The Saint and the Brave Goose (1979 made for TV – Ian Ogilvy) – edited from episodes of Return of the Saint

The Saint has a dark side, as he is willing to ruin the lives of the "ungodly," and even kill them, if he feels that more innocent lives can be saved. In the early books, Templar refers to this as murder, although he considers his actions justified and righteous, a view usually shared by partners and colleagues. Several adventures centre on his intention to kill. (For example, "Arizona" in The Saint Goes West has Templar planning to kill a Nazi scientist.) Powered by FeedBurner About Simon Templar, The Saint, and Leslie Charteris I have been trying to make a picture of a man. Changing, Trying to figure out exactly how many literary adventures of the Saint there are is an interesting challenge; many early adventures got reprinted under different titles when some marketing genius decided the books would sell more if they had the word ‘Saint’ in the title and there’s been many anthologies and collections under yet more titles, then combine that with the 40 adventures written in French and translated into Dutch but never English and you get the idea. Charteris died in 1993. Two additional Saint novels appeared around the time of the 1997 film starring Val Kilmer: a novelisation of the film (which had little connection to the Charteris stories) and Capture the Saint, a more faithful work published by The Saint Club and originated by Charteris in 1936. Both books were written by Burl Barer, who in the early 1990s published a history of the character in books, radio, and television.Other actors played Templar in later series, notably Return of the Saint (1978–1979) starring Ian Ogilvy; the series ran for one season on CBS and ITV. A television pilot for a series to be called The Saint in Manhattan, starring Australian actor Andrew Clarke, was shown on CBS in 1987 as part of the CBS Summer Playhouse; this pilot was produced by Donald L. Taffner, but it never progressed beyond the pilot stage. [ citation needed] The Saint appeared in a long-running series starting as a daily comic strip 27 September 1948 with a Sunday added on 20 March the following year. The early strips were written by Leslie Charteris, who had previous experience writing comic strips, having replaced Dashiell Hammett as the writer of the Secret Agent X-9 strip. The original artist was Mike Roy. In 1951, when John Spranger replaced Roy as the artist, he altered the Saint's appearance by depicting him with a beard. Bob Lubbers illustrated The Saint in 1959 and 1960. The final two years of the strip were drawn by Doug Wildey before it came to an end on 16 September 1961. In Sweden, a long-running Saint comic book was published from 1966 to 1985 under the title Helgonet. [26] [ bettersourceneeded] It originally reprinted the newspaper strip, but already in 1969 original stories were commissioned for Helgonet. These stories were also later reprinted in other European countries. About 170 stories were produced from 1969 to 1991 (after 1985, the stories were published in the Swedish James Bond comic book). Two of the main writers were Norman Worker and Donne Avenell; the latter also co-wrote the novels The Saint and the Templar Treasure and the novella collection Count on the Saint, while Worker contributed to the novella collection Catch the Saint. From 1964 to 1983, the Saint books were collaborative works; Charteris acted in an editorial capacity and received front cover author credit, while other authors wrote these stories and were credited inside the book. These collaborative authors are noted. (Sources: Barer and the editions themselves.)

Templar's behind-the-scenes work for the war effort, only hinted at initially, is confirmed in The Saint Steps In (The Crime Club, 1942) America-only edition combining Featuring the Saint and Alias the Saint (only US edition of these books until the 1960s) According to Saint historian Burl Barer, Charteris made the decision to remove Templar from his usual confidence-game trappings, not to mention his usual co-stars Uniatz, girlfriend Patricia Holm, valet Orace, and police foil Claud Eustace Teal, as they were all inappropriate for the post-war stories he was writing. [6] Although Charteris's novels and novellas had more conventional thriller plots than his confidence game short stories, both novels and stories are admired. As in the past, the appeal lies in the vitality of the character, a hero who can go into a brawl and come out with his hair combed and who, faced with death, lights a cigarette and taunts his enemy with the signature phrase " As the actress said to the bishop..." It was never publicly performed, as soon after writing it Charteris decided to focus on non-Saint work. For many years it was thought to be lost; however, two copies are known to exist in private hands, and correspondence relating to the play can be found in the Leslie Charteris Collection at Boston University.

About The Saint Bookstore

Watson, Colin (1979). Snobbery with Violence: Crime Stories and Their Audience. Eyre & Spottiswoode. ISBN 0-413-46570-5. A number of Saint adventures were published in French over a 30-year period, most of which have yet to be published in English. Many of these stories were ghostwritten by Madeleine Michel-Tyl and credited to Charteris (who exercised some editorial control). The French books were generally novelisations of scripts from the radio series, or novels adapted from stories in the American Saint comic strip. One of the writers who worked on the French series, Fleming Lee, later wrote for the English-language books. [13] Unpublished works [ edit ] Leslie Charteris himself portrayed The Saint in a photo play in Life magazine: The Saint Goes West. Many actors have portrayed Leslie Charteris' literary creation, Simon Templar, alias The Saint on television, in the movies, and on old-time radio.