The Saint is the nickname of the fictional character Simon Templar, featured in a series of novels and short stories by Leslie Charteris published between 1928 and 1963. After that date other authors collaborated with Charteris on books until 1983; two additional works produced without Charteris's participation were published in 1997. The character has also been portrayed in the franchise The Saint, which includes motion pictures, radio dramas, comic strips, comic books, and three television series.
Overview Simon Templar Simon Templar is a Robin Hood–like figure known as the Saint—from his initials, per The Saint Meets the Tiger,The Saint Meets the Tiger by Leslie Charteris, p. 2, Charter edition, 1980 and the reader is told that he was given the nickname at the age of nineteen. In addition, per Knight Templar:Knight Templar by Leslie Charteris, p. 4, International Polygonics, Ltd., 1989
Templar has aliases, often using the initials S.T. such as "Sebastian Tombs" or "Sugarman Treacle". Blessed with boyish humour, he makes humorous remarks and leaves a "calling card" at his "crimes," a stick figure of a man with a halo over his head. This is used as the logo of the books, the films, and the three TV series. Supposedly, the stick figure was created by Charteris when he was a boy, "...drawing cartoons for his own four-page magazine at 10...."Introduction by William Ruehlmann, The Saint in New York by Leslie Charteris, International Polygonics, Ltd., New York, 1988
He is described as "a buccaneer in the suits of Savile Row, amused, cool, debonair, with hell-for-leather blue eyes and a saintly smile".Leslie Charteris. She Was a Lady. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1931, p. 26
His origin remains a mystery; he is explicitly British, but in early books (e.g., Meet the Tiger) there are references which suggest that he had spent some time in the United States battling Prohibition villains. Presumably, his acquaintance with Bronx sidekick Hoppy Uniatz dates from this period. In the books, his income is derived from the pockets of the "ungodly" (as he terms those who live by a lesser moral code than his own), whom he is given to "socking on the boko." There are references to a "ten percent collection fee" to cover expenses when he extracts large sums from victims, the remainder being returned to the owners, given to charity, shared among Templar's colleagues, or some combination of those possibilities.
Templar's targets include corrupt politicians, warmongers, and other low life. "He claims he's a Robin Hood," says one victim, "but to me he's just a robber and a hood.""The Sporting Chance" in The Saint Around the World Robin Hood appears to be one inspiration for the character; Templar stories were often promoted as featuring "The Robin Hood of modern crime," and this phrase to describe Templar appears in several stories. A term used by Templar to describe his acquisitions is "boodle," a term also applied to the short story collection.
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.)
During the 1920s and early 1930s, the Saint is fighting European arms dealers, drug runners, and white slavers while based in his London home. His battles with Rayt Marius mirror the "four rounds with Carl Petersen" of Bulldog Drummond. During the first half of the 1940s, Charteris cast Templar as a willing operative of the American government, fighting Nazi interests in the United States during World War II.
Beginning with the "Arizona" novella, Templar is fighting his own war against Germany. The Saint Steps In reveals that Templar is operating on behalf of a mysterious American government official known as Hamilton who appears again in the next WWII-era Saint book, The Saint on Guard, and Templar is shown continuing to act as a secret agent for Hamilton in the first post-war novel, The Saint Sees it Through. The later books move from confidence games, murder mysteries, and wartime espionage, and place Templar as a global adventurer.
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.Burl Barer, The Saint: A Complete History in Print, Radio, Film and Television of Leslie Charteris' Robin Hood of Modern Crime, Simon Templar 1928–1992. Jefferson, N.C.: MacFarland, 2003. . .
Although the Saint functions as an ordinary detective in some stories, others depict ingenious plots to get even with vanity publishers and other rip-off artists, greedy bosses who exploit their workers, con men, etc.
Charteris gave Templar interests and quirks as the series went on. Early talents as an amateur poet and songwriter were displayed, often to taunt villains, though the novella The Inland Revenue established that poetry was also a hobby. That story revealed that Templar had written an adventure novel featuring a South American hero not far removed from The Saint himself.
Templar also on occasion would break the fourth wall in an almost metafictional sense, making references to being part of a story and mentioning in one early story how he cannot be killed so early on; the 1960s television series would also have Templar address viewers. Charteris in his narrative also frequently breaks the fourth wall by making references to the "chronicler" of the Saint's adventures and directly addressing the reader. In the story "The Sizzling Saboteur" in The Saint on Guard Charteris inserts his own name. In the story "Judith" in Saint Errant is the line, "'This,' the Saint said to nobody in particular, 'sounds like one of those stories that fellow Charteris might write. Furthermore, in the 1955 story "The Unkind Philanthropist," published in the collection The Saint on the Spanish Main, Templar states outright that (in his fictional universe) his adventures are indeed written about by a man named Leslie Charteris.
Other recurring characters 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.
They have an easy, non-binding relationship, as Templar is shown flirting with other women from time to time. However, his heart remains true to Holm in the early books, culminating in his considering marriage in the novella The Melancholy Journey of Mr. Teal, only to have Holm say that she had no interest in marrying. Holm disappeared in the late 1940s, and according to Barer's history of The Saint, Charteris refused to allow Templar a steady girlfriend, or Holm to return. (However, according to the Saintly Bible website, Charteris did write a film story that would have seen Templar encountering a son he had had with Holm.) Holm's final appearance as a character was in the short stories "Iris," "Lida," and "Luella," contained within the 1948 collection Saint Errant; the next direct reference to her does not appear in print until the 1983 novel Salvage for the Saint.
Another recurring character, Scotland Yard Inspector Claud Eustace Teal, could be found attempting to put the Saint behind bars, although in some books they work in partnership. In The Saint in New York, Teal's American counterpart, NYPD Inspector John Henry Fernack, was introduced, and he would become, like Teal, an Inspector Lestrade-like foil and pseudo-nemesis in a number of books, notably the American-based World War II novels of the 1940s.
The Saint had a band of compatriots, including Roger Conway, Norman Kent, Archie Sheridan, Richard "Dicky" Tremayne (a name that appeared in the 1990s TV series, Twin Peaks), Peter Quentin, Monty Hayward, and his ex-military valet, Orace.
In later stories, the dim-witted and constantly soused but reliable American thug Hoppy Uniatz was at Templar's side. Of the Saint's companions, only Norman Kent was killed during an adventure (he sacrifices himself to save Templar in the novel The Last Hero); the other males are presumed to have settled down and married (two to former female criminals: Dicky Tremayne to "Straight Audrey" Perowne and Peter Quentin to Kathleen "The Mug" Allfield; Archie Sheridan is mentioned to have married in "The Lawless Lady" in Enter the Saint, presumably to Lilla McAndrew after the events of the story "The Wonderful War" in Featuring the Saint).
The Hirondel The Hirondel (sometimes misspelled as Hirondelle) is a fictional car driven by Simon Templar. The Hirondel is an opulent, eight-cylinder, cream and red vehicle costing £5,000 and is a recurring element in many of The Saint books. The Hirondel is also used by Storm (Captain Arden) in the non-Saint novel Daredevil. Daredevil also features inspector Teal. The Hirondel was featured in a 1972 issue of Automobile Quarterly (Vol. 10 No. 1).
Publishing history
The origins of the Saint can be found in early works by Charteris, some of which predated the first Saint novel, 1928's Meet the Tiger, or were written after it but before Charteris committed to writing a Saint series. Burl Barer reveals that an obscure early work, Daredevil, not only featured a heroic lead who shared "Saintly" traits (down to driving the same make of car) but also shared his adventures with Inspector Claud Eustace Teal—a character later a regular in Saint books. Barer writes that several early Saint stories were rewritten from non-Saint stories, including the novel She Was a Lady, which appeared in magazine form featuring a different lead character.
Charteris utilized three formats for delivering his stories. Besides full-length novels, he wrote novellas for the most part published in magazines, notably developing the character in the pages of the British story-paper The Thriller under the tutelage of Monty Hayden, who was developing the ″Desperado″ character type for the magazine, and these were later collected in hardback books collecting two or three stories per volume. He also wrote short stories featuring the character, again mostly for magazines and later compiled into omnibus editions. In later years these short stories carried a common theme, such as the women Templar meets or exotic places he visits. With the exception of Meet the Tiger, chapter titles of Templar novels usually contain a descriptive phrase describing the events of the chapter; for example, Chapter Four of Knight Templar is titled "How Simon Templar dozed in the Green Park and discovered a new use for toothpaste".
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 ..."