The First Saint Omnibus: An Anthology of Saintly Adventures

by Leslie Charteris

Foreword by Leslie Charteris; The Man Who Was Clever (from Enter the Saint); The Wonderful War (from Wanted for Murder); The Story of a Dead Man (from Wanted for Murder); The Unblemished Bootlegger (from The Brighter Buccaneer); The Appaling Politician (from The Brighter Buccaneer); The Million Pound Day (from The Saint vs. Scotland Yard); The Death Penalty (from The Saint and Mr. Teal); The Simon Templar Foundation (from The Misfortunes of Mr. Teal); The Unfortunate Financier (from The Saint Intervenes); The Sleepless Knight (from The Saint Intervenes); The High Fence (from The Ace of Knaves); The Affair of Hogsbotham (from Follow the Saint); The Last Word by Leslie Charteris

Genres: Mystery, Adventure, Fiction, Thriller, Crime, Short Stories

639 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1930

About the author

Born Leslie Charles Bowyer-Yin, Leslie Charteris was a half-Chinese, half English author of primarily mystery fiction, as well as a screenwriter. He was best known for his many books chronicling the adventures of Simon Templar, alias "The Saint."

Reviews

[Diane · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a collection of four Saint (Simon Templar) short stories:

"The Appalling Politician" - Simon investigates the mysterious disappearance of a treaty from the home of the obnoxious (and overly talkative) politician Sir Joseph Whipplethwaite. Simon uses common sense and a knowledge of human nature to quickly figure out what happened and who did it.

"The Affair of Hogsbotham" - in an especially mischievous mood, Simon decides to "visit" the leader of the "Society for the Preservation of Public Morals" - and gets a lot more than he expected. Very funny ending. My favorite of all the stories.

"The Unblemished Bootlegger" - Simon teaches a lesson to a conman, whose fake business ventures are bankrupting innocent people.

"The Sleepless Knight" - a ruthless and callous businessman gets a taste of his own medicine courtesy of the Saint. A little idealistic, but I enjoyed it.

A short, fun collection of stories definitely worth checking out.

[Simon Mcleish · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first Saint book I ever owned (picked up in a jumble sale in the early 80s), but one I have not read for years, as I now have all these stories in their original appearances. This collection, some novella length, some short story length, is a good introduction to the series and the stories remain extremely readable. A couple would probably not be picked for such a collection today, as their attitudes seem rather dated (hence missing out on a five star rating) - not an issue which affects as much of Charteris' output as it does many of his contemporaries.

[Vintagebooklvr · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fun book filled with some crazy adventures and others that seem run-of-the-mill but might have been a more original when it was written. Yes, there are stereotypes but that is to be expected for the time period and some of the stereotypes of British upper-class you might consider it a bit equal opportunity offender. It gives a broad range to the type of adventures that the Saint gets involved and it does show he changes over time from a more violent, fist type of guy to one who is more clever.

[Cynthia · Rating 5 out of 5]

I picked this up at a tag sale as sort of a novelty and only picked it up one evening because I was bored... and was surprised at how much I really liked it. The writing is very smart and the plots are interesting. They're not really puzzles so much as adventure tales. The Saint is a little unfinished, you can see that Charteris is kind of experimenting with him as he goes along, but that's kind of charming.

[Paul Magnussen · Rating 5 out of 5]

It’s always seemed to me that if you like the Saint stories enough to read more than a couple of them, it’s worth starting at the beginning and reading them in the right order. Otherwise, you miss so much: to take just one example, the references in The Simon Templar Foundation to Rayt Marius (villain of The Last Hero and Knight Templar) will be meaningless to you.

However, if anthologies such as this are more to your taste, then this is where to start: all the stories are drawn from the pre-war books, which is to say the best ones.

There are also, especially for this volume, informative and amusing comments on each story by the author himself.

The variety and quality of the stories make this, I believe, the best single-volume Saint anthology — better by a small margin than the The Best of the Saint: v. 1, with which it has a 3-story overlap.

[Diane · Rating 3 out of 5]

The dialogue in this book is so dated that it interferes with the reading. Good stories, but needs to be updated for a modern audience.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really fun collection of stories that form the basis for the 1960s TV character. It seems a little bit much, and that makes it more fun.

[Bev · Rating 4 out of 5]

Part I: "Minsters & Saints Defend Us"

As I posted on FaceBook, I have no idea why it's taken me so long to discover The Saint. I've long been aware of him. He's frequently mentioned in the mystery fact books that I've perused. I even know about the series starring Roger Moore. And I've had this omnibus of Saint stories for...as some of my British mysteries might put it...donkey's years. Just never cracked it open.

These stories are delightful. A modern-day Robin Hood taking from the crooks and swindlers and giving back to the swindled. The most recent story, "The Appalling Politician," is worth it just for the opening pontification by said politician. And Leslie Charteris swears that it's a verbatim rendition of an actual speech heard during the '30s with only a change of name, occasion, and the sport referenced. And in the story before that, "The Unblemished Bootlegger," no revenge was ever more suitable than that which the Saint visited upon Mr. Melford Croon.

The breezy, understated wit of these stories is what really reels me in. And, joy of joys, I sill have over half the collection to go.

Part II: "The Saint Goes Marching Out"

Coming to the end of my little jaunt with The Saint. I wondered if perhaps his methods might wear on me after a while (like the madcap mysteries with "Bill Shakespeare"), but happily they have not. He continues to charm me right up to the last of the stories contained in this gem of an omnibus. I'm so glad I picked this up on a whim at one of the Red Cross Book Sales a few years ago.

>We interrupt this blog post for a commercial: If you are a book lover and live in Bloomington and have never been to the Red Cross Book Sale which takes place over the first weekend of October each year, then you need to mark your calendar and not let anything keep you away from the next one. There's nothing like it....They take the largest building out at the fairgrounds and stuff it to the gills with books, loads & loads of glorious books. I never come away with less than twenty finds of all sorts.

And now back to our regularly scheduled post: So, as I was saying, my new love is The Saint. I want more of that blue-eyed, dark-haired dispenser of justice (his own brand, you must understand). I'll be on the look-out. For those who have not become acquainted with him, I highly recommend the tale of "The Sleepless Knight"--an ingenious method of making a heartless trucking company director see the light. And it made me wonder if "The Avengers" writers had this story in mind when they came up with the episode "Dead Man's Treasure." I certainly can see connections.

These two parts of the review (click above) were previously posted on my blog. Please request permission before reposting. Thanks.

[Tom Marcinko · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to read some of Charteris’s stories. The Saint is a gap in my pop-culture knowledge. Never read one of the stories, never saw the TV show. A really bad movie from the 90s which I prefer to think didn’t count.
But I find Charteris’s style so annoying, and his character so plastic, that I could only read one.

Maybe it's a generational thing.

The author's project is not a bad one:

"I have been trying to make a picture of a man. Changing, yes. Developing, I hope. Fantastic, improbable—perhaps. Quite worthless, quite irritating, if you feel that way. Or a slightly cockeyed ideal, if you feel differently. It doesn’t matter so much, so long as you feel that you would recognise him if you met him tomorrow."

[Kathryn McCary · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of those books I read early enough and often enough so it is in many ways embedded in my bones and psyche. Yeah, I know--Charteris was a hack. But he was a hack whose writing was fun to read, and even now I open this and start reading with a little smile "playing along my lips."

[Janet Perry]

I found this when cleaning out my shelves & am really enjoying it. I found two other and will be reading them next.