Perry Mason

Perry Mason is a fictional American criminal defense lawyer who is the main character in the detective fiction written by Erle Stanley Gardner. Perry Mason appears in 82 novels and four short stories, all involving a client charged with murder, usually centered on a preliminary hearing or jury trial. Mason typically establishes his client's innocence by finding the real murderer. The character was inspired by Los Angeles criminal defense attorney Earl Rogers. Perry Mason was adapted for motion pictures and a long-running radio series. These were followed by the best-known adaptation, the CBS television series Perry Mason (1957–1966), starring Raymond Burr. A second television series, The New Perry Mason starring Monte Markham, ran from 1973 to 1974. Thirty Perry Mason television films aired from 1985 to 1995, with Burr reprising the role in 26 of them up to his death in 1993. A third television series, HBO's Perry Mason, starring Matthew Rhys, aired from 2020 to 2023. The Perry Mason series ranks third in the top ten best-selling book series. In 2015, the American Bar Association's publishing imprint, Ankerwycke, began reissuing Gardner's Perry Mason books, which had been out of print in the United States.