Contemporary Reception of Erle Stanley Gardner’s Perry Mason Novel Series and Their Film Adaptations by Polish- and English-Speaking Audiences

Marta Joanna Zapała-Kraj

Abstract


This paper offers an overview of the reception of Erle Stanley Gardner’s series of novels about lawyer Perry Mason and the numerous film adaptations based on that series. It seeks to analyze their reception by contemporary Polish- and English-speaking readers and viewers. Accordingly, the statistics of readership and viewership of books, films and series based on the novels by Gardner are presented and discussed. The article is divided into five sections that deal with the following: Gardner as author; Gardner’s contribution to the development of serialized novel; editions of Gardner’s Perry Mason novels in the United States and in Poland; reception of Gardner’s Perry Mason novel series by Polish- and English-speaking readers, and reception of TV and film adaptations of these novels.


Keywords


Erle Stanley Gardner; reception; crime novel; popularity

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References


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DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.17951/ff.2021.39.2.43-67
Date of publication: 2021-12-27 11:14:15
Date of submission: 2021-05-21 20:42:55


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