Museum Will Give Clues to Writer’s Life

John Anthony Miller’s bookcase is filled top to bottom with a piece of Ventura’s history.

Miller has collected just about every one of the roughly 150 mystery novels written by late Ventura resident Erle Stanley Gardner, the lawyer turned author who created the Perry Mason character.

Now Miller, an artist, book dealer and collector of all things rare, and his friend Keith Burns, an author and bookseller, want to share that collection with the rest of the city in a new museum tentatively scheduled to open in November.

“We want to try to make the presence of him more strong than it is,” Miller said of Gardner, who died in 1970 at age 80. “It’s important to Ventura.”

Gardner was known as a defender of the underdog, a civil rights lawyer who staunchly defended minorities in Ventura and Oxnard, Miller said. He based street names in his novels and short stories--sometimes more loosely than others--on the city’s geography.

Burns and Miller have collected checks paid to Gardner for the short stories he wrote for pulp rags. They’ve gathered Gardner’s original family photos, financial records, Christmas cards, even the author’s baby cup. They’ve also acquired suits, ties, scripts and other items actor Raymond Burr used when filming the “Perry Mason” TV show.

They’ll include all these items in the Erle Stanley Gardner Museum, which will open soon at a temporary downtown location. The 500-square-foot space in El Jardin, 433 E. Main St., will feature rotating exhibits from Gardner’s life and the life of his characters.

Visitors can read letters written by Gardner, peruse his titles, including works written in Ventura--”The Case of the Sulky Girl,” “The Case of the Lucky Legs” and others.

The pair hope to find a larger, more permanent location to display the artifacts they’ve collected over the past 20 years.

Miller said that Gardner rates as one of the top three mystery authors of the century. He was prolific, writing at home, dictating ideas to secretaries and operating out of several downtown Ventura locations.

And eventually, the author created Perry Mason--first on paper in a host of novels. When the character made his TV debut, Gardner handpicked Burr to portray the deep-voiced, broad-shouldered attorney who was always at the root of every whodunit court case.