Daredevil

Leslie Charles Bowyer Yin was born on the 12th May 1907 in Singapore.

He attended Saint Andrew’s School in Singapore and then Rossall school in Fleetwood, Lancashire before briefly attending King’s College, Cambridge, to read law but dropped out after his first novel was accepted for publication.

Despite this early success he worked a colourful array of odd jobs, including stints as a merchant seaman, gold prospector, tin miner, and professional bridge player, as he built up to a reliable income from his publishing.

In 1926 he legally changed his surname to Charteris. Two years later he had published his 3rd novel and with it the introduction of Simon Templar; ‘The Saint’. This marked the birth of a phenomenon, and he spent the next 55 years writing and overseeing his characters exploits. It was an extraordinary creation and ran through over 50 books, Hollywood films, and a legendary 1960s television series starring Roger Moore.

Despite moving to the United States in 1932 and becoming a naturalised citizen he eventually returned to England.

Leslie Charteris died on the 15th April 1993 in Windsor, Berkshire, England. He was 85.

© 2026 Horse's Mouth (Ebook): 9781807547288

Release date

Ebook: 15 August 2026