Perry Mason

Perry Mason is a fictional character, a defense attorney who was the main character in works of detective fiction authored by Erle Stanley Gardner. Perry Mason was featured in more than 80 novels and short stories, most of which had a plot involving his client's murder trial. Typically, Mason was able to establish his client's innocence by implicating another character, who then confessed. Gardner, who was one of the best-selling authors of all time, had "135 million copies of his books in print in America alone in the year of his death" in 1969. The character of Perry Mason was portrayed each weekday on a long-running radio series, followed by well-known depictions on film and television, including "television's most successful and longest-running lawyer series" from 1957 to 1966 starring Raymond Burr; another series in 1973–1974, starring Monte Markham and Brett Somers; and 30 made-for-TV movies filmed from 1985 to 1993.