''Bet on the Saint'' is the title of an unpublished novel by

Fleming Lee Fleming Lee (December 19, 1933 – December 24, 2012), born Fleming Lee Blitch, was an American author, best known for his collaborations with Leslie Charteris on his series of "Saint" novels. Fleming was born in St. Augustine, Florida to Looni ...

(credited to

Leslie Charteris Leslie Charteris (born Leslie Charles Bowyer-Yin, 12 May 1907 – 15 April 1993), was a British-Chinese author of adventure fiction, as well as a screenwriter.Simon Templar ''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 unt ...

(alias "The Saint"), created by Charteris in 1928. The novel was written in 1968. Charteris had effectively retired from writing the stories in 1963, and served in an editorial capacity overseeing a new series of Saint novels and novellas by other writers. According to the book ''The Saint: A Complete History in Print, Radio, Film and Television 1928-1992'' by

Burl Barer Burl Barer (born 1947 in Walla Walla, Washington) is an American author, literary historian and radio host. He is best known for his writings about the character Simon Templar. Career Fiction ''The Saint'' ''The Saint: A Complete History in ...

, Charteris and Lee collaborated on this novel, which was based upon a storyline from the earlier ''The Saint''

comic strip A comic strip is a sequence of drawings, often cartoons, arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions. Traditionally, throughout the 20th and into the 21st ...

. The plot, as described by Barer, is

science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel unive ...

, and depicts Templar's attempts to stop the distribution of a performance-enhancing drug that endows athletes with super-human strength. Barer writes that neither Charteris nor Lee were particularly happy with the final manuscript, although Charteris did "copious rewrites". Breaking a pattern he had maintained for nearly 40 years, Charteris chose not to submit ''Bet on the Saint'' to his longtime British publishers,

Hodder & Stoughton Hodder & Stoughton is a British publishing house, now an imprint (trade name), imprint of Hachette (publisher), Hachette. History Early history The firm has its origins in the 1840s, with Matthew Hodder's employment, aged 14, with Messrs ...

. Instead, he submitted it solely to Doubleday, the company that ran

The Crime Club ''The Crime Club'' was an imprint of the Doubleday publishing company, which later spawned a 1946-47 anthology radio series, and a 1937-1939 film series. Literature Many classic and popular works of detective and mystery fiction had their fir ...

imprint Imprint or imprinting may refer to: Entertainment * ''Imprint'' (TV series), Canadian television series * "Imprint" (''Masters of Horror''), episode of TV show ''Masters of Horror'' * ''Imprint'' (film), a 2007 independent drama/thriller film ...

which had published the first US editions of every Saint book since 1928. Doubleday rejected it, and Charteris offered first publication rights to other US publishers. However, he was unable to find an alternative publisher and ''Bet on the Saint'' was abandoned. Fleming Lee afterwards completed another comic strip adaptation, '' The Saint in Pursuit'', which was accepted for publication by both Hodder & Stoughton and Doubleday/Crime Club after Charteris edited the manuscript. It was published in 1970. To date, this "lost" Saint novel remains unpublished and a copy of the manuscript is kept with a collection of Charteris' papers at

Boston University Boston University (BU) is a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. The university is nonsectarian, but has a historical affiliation with the United Methodist Church. It was founded in 1839 by Methodists with its original campu ...

. This is one of three known Saint novels that were never published. The others were a 1979 work by

Joy Martin The word joy refers to the emotion evoked by well-being, success, or good fortune, and is typically associated with feelings of intense, long lasting happiness. Dictionary definitions Dictionary definitions of joy typically include a sense of ...

that was approved by Charteris entitled ''

The Saint's Lady ''The Saint's Lady'' is an unpublished novel by Joy Martin featuring the character of criminal-turned-detective Simon Templar (alias "The Saint") who had been created by Leslie Charteris in 1928. According to the book ''The Saint: A Complete Hist ...

'', and a recently discovered unpublished Charteris manuscript from the early 1940s titled ''

The Saint's Second Front ''The Saint's Second Front'' is the title of the working typescript of a The Saint (Simon Templar) novel written by Leslie Charteris in or around the summer of 1941. It describes a (foiled) military attack by Japan on America. It was rejected fro ...

''.

References

* Burl Barer, ''The Saint: A Complete History in Print, Radio, Film and Television 1928-1992''. Jefferson, N.C.: MacFarland, 2003 (originally published in 1992), pp. 213–215 (2003 edition). {{The Saint Simon Templar books Unpublished novels