Leslie Charteris

The Reluctant Nudist

First published January 1956 in the USA edition of The Saint Detective Magazine and in the November 1956 UK edition of The Saint Detective Magazine. Story 3 (France) of The Saint Around The World, first published in the USA by The Crime Club in 1957, first published in hardback in the UK by Hodder & Stoughton Ltd 1957, first UK paperback by Hodder, 1961.

The story is a middle-period Simon Templar ("The Saint") adventure. By "middle period" I mean it is post-WWII, with The Saint an essentially a solo operator, and before the TV series gave him a huge following. Simon Templar accompanies George McGeorge on a visit to the latter's uncle who lives on the Ile du Levant. Waldo Oddington (in his sixties) is intending marrying his attractive twenty-five-year-old live-in housekeeper/general factotum Nadine Zeult.

Of all the tales detailed on this Website, this was the first that I read. I noticed neither a presumption that social nudity and sex were inseparable, nor any attempt at titillation, despite the story's intended readers - I assume the target was "red-blooded men"! See what you think.

Although when I first read the book, I hadn't been to Ile du Levant, I got a fair idea of what the island must be like. It seemed that, if Leslie Charteris hadn't spent a day or few there for research, he must have read up very thoroughly on the place and its permanent, semi-permanent and temporary populations. Except for Charteris's implication that there are many beaches, when I had a day trip to the island 23 years after he wrote the story I found it pretty much as he described it.

Since writing the above, I have discovered that Charteris was indeed writing from real-life experience. It was the early 1950s, and Charteris was on holiday in the south of France with a friend. Hearing about Ile du Levant, the pair's curiousity was aroused, and they took themselves off for a look. Having had a look, and enjoyed what they saw, they felt it was only right to adopt the local customs, and stripped off happily. But this didn't induce either to become nudists - it was very much a one-off. (I am indebted to Ian Dickerson, vigilant seeker after truth and compiler of the as-yet unpublished Saintly Bible, for chapter and verse information - including Charteris's biographical notes about his trip in The Saint Mystery Magazine, USA, April 1965.)

Ratings:

Nudity	Naturist nudity	A good read?

For further information about Leslie Charteris and Simon Templar, look no further than the excellent www.saint.org.

Last updated 2003 September 11.
 
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