Per the foreword to The Case of the Smoking Chimney, Gramps Wiggins is based on someone that Erle Stanley Gardner met: "More frequently than they realise, authors are inspired by outstanding individuals whom they meet. Two years ago in New Orleans I met a litle old chap who has as much bounce as a rubber ball, whose eyes sparkle with enthusiasm, whose white hair shaggles down around his shoulders. His name is Wood Whitesell." Whitesell was a photographer who didn't care about money and was frequently too busy to think about eating, as he tried to crowd all the activities he wanted to do into the day. Gardner said "Whitesell and Gramp Wiggins are, of course, two distinct entities, although they have numerous points in common. To what extent Gramps was inspired by Whitesell even I don't know. All I know is that after a winter in New Orleans during which I became well acquainted with Whitesell, Gramp Wiggins walked into my consciousness one day and demanded to be set down on paper. As I began to portray Gramps, I realized how very much in common he had with Wood Whitesell."
Western short storysortname|The|Exact Opposite|nolink=1sortname|The|Phantom Crook|nolink=1sortname|The|Last Bell on the Street|nolink=1sortname|The|Saturday Evening Postsortname|The|Saturday Evening Post|nolink=1sortname|The|Big Squeeze|nolink=1sortname|The|Saturday Evening Post|nolink=1sortname|A|Sugar Coating|nolink=1sortname|The|False Fire|nolink=1sortname|The|Incredible Mr. Smith|nolink=1sortname|The|Gong of Vengeance|nolink=1sortname|The|Eyes of China|nolink=1sortname|The|American Magazine|nolink=1sortname|A|Man is Missing|nolink=1sortname|The|American Magazine|nolink=1sortname|The|Clue of the Screaming Woman|nolink=1efn|Reprinted in the 1979 anthology, Ellery Queen's Secrets of Mysterysortname|The|Affair of the Reluctant Witness|nolink=1sortname|The|Affair of the Pearl Princess|nolink=1sortname|The|Law That Leaked|nolink=1sortname|The|Corpse Was in the Countinghouse|nolink=1sortname|The|Jeweled Butterfly|nolink=1sortname|The|Case of the Murderer's Bride|nolink=1
Collections
Non-fiction
Travel
Crime
An article titled "My Casebook of True Crime—Introduction" began a series of 28 non-fiction articles Gardner wrote for The American Weekly.
1978: Hughes, Dorothy B. Erle Stanley Gardner: The Case of the Real Perry Mason. New York: William Morrowand Company, 1978.
1980: Fugate, Francis L., and Roberta B. Fugate. Secrets of the World's Best-Selling Writer: The Storytelling Techniques of Erle Stanley Gardner. New York: William Morrow and Company, 1980.
