Charlie Chan's Poppa

When she was sixteen years old Barbara Gregorich discovered the Charlie Chan novels of Earl Derr Biggers on the "local authors" shelf of the Warren Public Library. She fell in love with the wisdom, humor, and perceptiveness of the amiable Chinese-Hawaiian police detective, and she admired the author who created him.

Although seldom given credit for it, Biggers was one of the first writers to help create mystery's Golden Age on the American side of the Atlantic. His six Chan novels were serialized in The Saturday Evening Post, published by Bobbs-Merrill, and sought by Hollywood, and he received fan mail from thousands.

Wanting to know more about Earl Derr Biggers and how he came to write his mysteries, Gregorich researched the Bobbs-Merrill Archives at the Lilly Library, Indiana University, Bloomington. There she read all the correspondence between Biggers and his editor — correspondence which brings to life the author's struggles to satisfy the Chan-hungry public.