Saint story identified

[ffutures]

I've managed to identify the Saint story I'm looking for - it's The Inland Revenue in The Saint Versus Scotland Yard, AKA The Holy Terror - the plot of which is that Simon gets hit with a tax bill after writing a novel (which is poorly received by critics etc.) and uncovers a blackmailer while sorting out his taxes.

Unfortunately I can't find my copy of the book, so I still don't know what the Saint actually calls his novel - the book I've found this in is Butler's The Durable Desperadoes which contains this passage:

[describing Charteris and his respone to cricism of an earlier nove] To mount his attack, he rather surprisingly turns the Saint into an amateur Leslie Charteris. 'During a brief spell of virtue' it is explained, he had 'beguiled himself with the writing of a novel' - the adventures of Mario, a super-brigand of South America, which had been accepted by a publisher and 'could be purchased at any bookseller for three half-crowns'.

So, does anyone happen to have a copy of The Saint Versus Scotland Yard /The Holy Terror handy? If so, what was the title of the book, if a title is actually given at all?

Comments

[were-gopher.livejournal.com]

This is the letter in chapter II

"Dear Mr Templar,
Having come across a copy of your book 'The Pirate' and having nothing to do I sat down to read it. Well, the impression it gave me was that you are a writer with no sense of proportion. The reader's sympathy owing to the faulty setting of the first chapter naturally goes all the way with Kerrigan, even though he is a crook. It is not surprising that this book has not gone to a second edition. You do not evidently understand the mentality of an English reading public. If instead of Mario you had selected for your hero an Englishman or an American, you would have written a fairly readable and a passable tale - but a lousy Dago who works himself out of impossible difficulties and situations is too much. It is not convincing. It does not appeal. In a word it is purile.
I fancy you yourself must have a fair amount of Dago blood in you -"

Something I cannot see getting reprinted today.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

The Pirate! Of course it is! Many many thanks!

[ggreig]

Probably not - although to be fair, it's not like the prejudiced letter writer is meant to be sympathetic.

[nelc.livejournal.com]

I suspect that this is not untypical of the kinds of letter a professional writer gets, possibly even a bit mild, and is probably modelled on many Charteris himself received.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

That attitude was still fairly common post WW2.

A photography book I read in the early seventies and written in I think the 1950s described a difficult photographic problem - a white woman marrying a negro - then went on to say something along the lines of "you might well say that you wouldn't want to take pictures of a n----- [1] marrying a white woman anyway, but you might get a similar problem if a white groom was tanned from service in the tropics..."

[1] yes, it was the word you think it was.

[ggreig]

As Charteris was half Chinese by parentage, I think he probably encountered a fair bit of that sort of ignorance personally. You're likely right.

Inspiration for The Pirate

[hoppyuniatz.livejournal.com]

Came from Leslie's third book, The Bandit, which featured a hero by the name of Ramon Francisco De Castilla Y Espronceda Manrique.

The book flopped.

[realthog.livejournal.com]

There's a tad (but a small tad) of extra info here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holy_Terror_The_Saint .

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

That doesn't actually work.

[ggreig]

This should: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holy_Terror_(The_Saint)

[realthog.livejournal.com]

Meither it does. How very odd. I've just googled the thing again and been given the URL en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holy_Terror_(The_Saint) -- I wonder how the parentheses managed to disappear the last time?

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Weird - thanks anyway, and thanks everyone else who helped, it's greatly appreciated.