A Brief Biography
of
Earl Derr Biggers

Earl Derr Biggers

Known for his comic sense, Earl Derr Biggers was known to the public as one of the foremost writers of mystery and detective stories in this country. To his friends he was known for his comic sense.

It carried him through the solemnities of a literary course at Harvard, class of 1907, where he recalled being told that Fielding, Smollett and Richardson were dead and that we would never see their like again. He preferred Rudyard Kipling and Richard Harding Davis and, in his undergraduate days, considered Franklin P. Adams a better story-teller than Oliver Goldsmith.

When he said so to his classmates they told each other that it was because he came from the wild and untamed West--Warren, Ohio, where he was born in 1884. Biggers said they read Keats to one another in the twilight at Harvard at that time, urging him to leave the room before they began.

A professor listened to his preferences sadly and moaned,"Oh, Biggers, Biggers, why will you be so contemporary!"

In due course he emerged from Harvard a Bachelor of Arts and immediately went to work on The Boston Traveler, writing a humorous column, later criticizing the drama, until 1911.

By that time he had finished his first novel, "Seven Keys To Baldpate," and had wearied of the strain of writing in a public and frivolous manner in Boston, where the atmosphere of the best literary traditions came in whenever he opened the window.

He married Miss Eleanor Ladd of Medford, Mass., and migrated to New York with the first novel and also his first comedy, "If You're Only Human." Rose Stahl wanted to appear in the comedy, but her manager, Henry B. Harris, would have none of it. When it was later produced in stock in 1912 Mr. Biggers met George M. Cohan, and when "Seven Keys To Baldpate" was published in 1913 Mr. Cohan bought the dramatic rights. The play was a famous success and Cohan made a vast amount of money with it and entered upon his most productive phase as a serious dramatist.

Mr. Biggers was hailed as the humorous find of the year. He wrote magazine articles, stories, novels and plays, including a war play, "Inside The Lines," which ran 500 nights in London in 1915 and 1916.

He collaborated in 1917 with William Hodge on a comedy, "A Cure For Curables," in which, he said later, cured him of being a play-wright. Line after line was changed as the play was being prepared for production, until, as Mr. Biggers regarded it, there was only one line of his left in its original form when it reached the boards.

"But," he said, "after careful consideration, Hodge removed that."

After an active season in 1919, with "See-Saw," a story made into a musical comedy for Henry W. Savage, and with a farce in collaboration with Christopher Morley, "Three's A Crowd," Mr. Biggers decided to quit playwriting and go to California--as he declared, to repair his health in the sunshine and his bank account in the motion-picture works.

In Pasadena, Cal., thereafter, Mr. biggers flourished. His skill in dealing with mystery, decorated with romance and a comic sense in the development of action, was welcomed by magazine publishers as well as by such motion picture producers as the Fox Film Corporation, Warner Brothers and Radio Pictures.

His reputation spread among the public which read detective stories long before Presidents and Ambassadors publicly declared they were addicted to them.

His most famous creation was Charlie Chan, a soft-spoken and sagacious Chinese sleuth inhabiting Hawaii, who moved through criminal mysteries throughout the world, gently murmuring aphorisms supplied by Mr. Biggers and collected by Charlie Chan's followers from picture to picture and novel to novel:

"Only very brave mouse makes nest in cat's ear."

"Not yet--patience and mulberry leaf make silk shawl."

"Every man must wear out at least one pair of fools shoes."

"Careless shepherd make excellent dinner for wolf."

"This is unexpected...like squirt from aggressive grapefruit."

"Do not wave stick when trying to catch dog."

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Charlie Chan was created by writer Earl Derr Biggers and was based in part on the experiences of a genuine Chinese detective in Honolulu named Chang Apana. Biggers read in the newspaper about Apana while vacationing in Honolulu in 1919.

Six years later he developed the character of Charlie Chan for his novel "The House Without A Key" (1925). He wrote six Charlie Chan novels, all of moderate popularity. All were adapted to the cinema, except for the last book "Keeper Of The Keys" (1932). The real popularity of the books came after Earl Derr Biggers' death in 1933 at the age of 48. It was at this time that the movie series began to gain wide popularity. The novels were all used for the films, up until "Charlie Chan In London" (1934). The Chan of the novels is described as "very fat indeed," and his sayings are often more acid in tone. There is no father/son byplay either. His assistant is a Japanese named Kashimo, who is far more disruptive than any of the offspring in the films. Perhaps the best of the novels is "Behind That Curtain" (1929). The plot is set in San Francisco, with Chan helping to solve the murder of an old friend Sir Frederic Bruce. In this book, the Chan of the novels and the Chan of the films seem the closest. Chan is also in the book throughout. (Some of the other novels have Chan turn up in the book's second half). This plot is one of the most engaging, rivalled only by "The Black Camel" (1931).

Chang Apana

The first Charlie Chan novel of Earl Derr Biggers, shows signs of the Realist school of detective fiction. It has a policeman as its detective hero. It has a well described background of Hawaii. It also explores San Francisco in one section. The plot ultimately hinges on one staple, the alibi. And it follows realist tradition by sympathetically including a character of a minority race, the Chinese detective Charlie Chan. Chan is depicted as a person of high intelligence, ability, and moral character, who is uniformly respected by everyone in society around him. Earl Derr Biggers explicitly created his hero Chan as a reply to the racist Yellow Peril stories that were so popular of that era. After years of cliched movie adaptations, Charlie Chan is now frequently considered stereotypical. It seems inaccurate and unjust to judge his original book by later film versions. Earl Derr Biggers worked hard to shatter racist stereotypes and replace them by positive images of Chinese people. He deserves credit for this, not blame. Charlie Chan personally has to battle racial prejudice against Chinese in some of Mr. Biggers' books.
An example: Chapter 21 of The Chinese Parrot (1927).

Oland, Toler & Winters

Earl Derr Biggers commitment to the Realist approach varies from novel to novel. It is the strongest in The House Without A Key (1925), and weakest in The Chinese Parrot (1927), and in Behind That Curtain (1929) also suggests that detective fiction bears little resemblance to real life police work. Mr. Biggers takes the position that real life detection is largely dependent on a mixture of hard work and luck. This sort of self referential discussion of The Detective Story within a detective story has a long tradition in mystery fiction. The Chinese Parrot (1927) also contains several witty allusions to detective story conventions.

A few mystery authors have complained about Earl Derr Biggers' mechanical plot construction with numerous sub plots arbitrarily sewn together, The House Without A Key (1925). The best parts of the book are not the mystery plot or investigation, but the events leading up to the murder. Similarly, the best parts of The Chinese Parrot (1927) are the first three chapters. In both novels, these opening sections contain the most important parts of the background, and well done elements of intrigue and adventure.

The murder victim in Behind That Curtain (1929) leaves behind a non-verbal, symbolic clue that serves as a Dying Message. This convention would soon be used by Ellery Queen in numerous stories. Earl Derr Biggers' may have been the first to use this device.




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