''The Saint's Lady'' is an unpublished novel by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 ...

featuring the character of criminal-turned-detective

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") who had been created by

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.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 ...

, Martin sent her manuscript to Leslie Charteris as a present in 1979. On its own, this would qualify the novel as no more than

fan fiction Fan fiction or fanfiction (also abbreviated to fan fic, fanfic, fic or FF) is fictional writing written in an amateur capacity by fans, unauthorized by, but based on an existing work of fiction. The author uses copyrighted characters, settin ...

. However Charteris, who at the time was editing a series of continuation books featuring The Saint (he had stopped writing the character full-time in 1963) was impressed enough by the manuscript to offer it to the British publishers of the Saint series,

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 ...

, for publication as the next book in the series. Barer writes that Hodder & Stoughton rejected the manuscript, apparently on the grounds that Martin had made Templar sound too Scottish. The manuscript is in the archives 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 ...

. Although Barer does not describe the plot of ''The Saint's Lady'', he does quote from the book, and it is notable that the novel would have seen the return of Templar's longtime girlfriend/partner

Patricia Holm Patricia Holm is the name of a fictional character who appeared in the novels and short stories of Leslie Charteris between 1928 and 1948. She was the on-again, off-again girlfriend and partner of Simon Templar, alias "The Saint", and shared a nu ...

after an absence from the Saint series of more than 30 years (her most recent appearance as of 1979 having been in the 1948 short story collection ''

Saint Errant ''Saint Errant'' is a collection of short stories by Leslie Charteris, first published in 1948 by The Crime Club in the United States and in 1949 by Hodder and Stoughton in the United Kingdom. This was the 28th book to feature the adventures of Si ...

''. It is not known, however, if the title is a direct reference to Holm. Martin would have also become the first woman to publish an English-language Saint novel, although it is not known whether she would have received author credit on the cover as at this time the practice was for the books to be credited to Charteris (with the collaborative authors credited inside). This is not the only ''Saint'' novel to remain unpublished. Barer also provides an outline of ''

Bet on the Saint ''Bet on the Saint'' is the title of an unpublished novel by Fleming Lee (credited to Leslie Charteris), featuring the character of criminal-turned-detective Simon Templar (alias "The Saint"), created by Charteris in 1928. The novel was written in ...

'', a 1968 collaboration between Charteris and

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 ...

based on a ''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 ...

storyline, which was rejected by Doubleday (Charteris' American publishers). And, recently, an unpublished Charteris manuscript from the early 1940s, ''

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 ...

'', has been discovered. Also, according to "The Saintly Bible",

Ian Dickerson Ian Dickerson (born 1969) is a British writer, director and producer. He has written about adaptations of Leslie Charteris's The Saint and Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes. He directed ''Randall and Hopkirk (Revisited)'' for Network in 200 ...

was at one time developing a novel out of an unrealized film project entitled ''Son of the Saint''. As of 2020 this book has yet to see prin

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). {{DEFAULTSORT:Saint's Lady, The Simon Templar books Unpublished novels