Gardner, Erle Stanley

Erle Stanley Gardner was an American author and lawyer born in Malden, Massachusetts. His father was a mining engineer who worked across the continent, and Erle Stanley Gardner grew up in places as far apart as Yukon, Oregon and California. He attended Palo Alto High School until 1909 and then Valparaiso University, Indiana. He was a keen boxer as a young man, and some legal complications associated with boxing got him interested in law. He trained as a lawyer and practiced in California between 1911 and 1933 apart from a short period when he worked as a salesman.