Editing Charlie Chan (section)

== Books ==
The character of Charlie Chan was created by [[Earl Derr Biggers]]. In 1919,<ref>Mitchell (1999), xxv.</ref> while visiting [[Hawaii]], Biggers planned a detective novel to be called ''[[The House Without a Key]]''. He did not begin to write that novel until four years later, however, when he was inspired to add a Chinese-American police officer to the plot after reading in a newspaper of [[Chang Apana]] and Lee Fook, two detectives on the Honolulu police force.<ref>This point is debated. Hawley says Apana directly inspired Biggers (135); Herbert says Apana ''may'' have done so (20). However, Biggers himself, in a 1931 interview, cited both Apana and Fook as inspirations for the character of Charlie Chan ("Creating Charlie Chan" [1931]). When Biggers actually met Apana a few years later, he found that his character and Apana had little in common.</ref>{{sfnb|Hawley|1991| p= 135}}{{sfnb|Herbert |2003|p=20}} Biggers, who disliked the [[Yellow Peril]] stereotypes he found when he came to California,{{r|China}} explicitly conceived of the character as an alternative: "Sinister and wicked Chinese are old stuff, but an amiable Chinese on the side of law and order has never been used.":<ref>Earl Derr Biggers, quoted in "Creating Charlie Chan" (1931).</ref>

{{blockquote|quote=It overwhelms me with sadness to admit it … for he is of my own origin, my own race, as you know. But when I look into his eyes I discover that a gulf like the heaving Pacific lies between us. Why? Because he, though among Caucasians many more years than I, still remains Chinese. As Chinese to-day as in the first moon of his existence. While I – I bear the brand – the label – Americanized.... I traveled with the current.... I was ambitious. I sought success. For what I have won, I paid the price. Am I an American? No. Am I, then, a Chinese? Not in the eyes of Ah Sing.|source=Charlie Chan, speaking of a murderer's accomplice, in ''Keeper of the Keys'', by Earl Derr Biggers<ref>Quoted in Sommer (), 211.</ref>}}

The "amiable Chinese" made his first appearance in ''The House Without a Key'' (1925). The character was not central to the novel and was not mentioned by name on the dust jacket of the first edition.<ref name="Queen 1969, 102">Queen (1969), 102.</ref> In the novel, Chan is described as "very fat indeed, yet he walked with the light dainty step of a woman"<ref>{{cite book |last1=Biggers |first1=Earl Derr |title=The House Without a Key |date=1925 |publisher=New York : Grosset & Dunlap |page=[https://archive.org/details/housewithoutkey00bigg/page/76 76] |url=https://archive.org/details/housewithoutkey00bigg}}</ref> and in ''The Chinese Parrot'' as being " … an undistinguished figure in his Western clothes."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Biggers |first1=Earl Derr |title=The Chinese Parrot |date=2013 |publisher=A&C Black |isbn=978-1-4482-1312-2 |page=25 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zR6DAAAAQBAJ&q=%22undistinguished+figure+in+his+Western+clothes%22&pg=PT25 |language=en}}</ref> According to critic Sandra Hawley, this description of Chan allows Biggers to portray the character as nonthreatening, the opposite of evil Chinese characters, such as [[Fu Manchu]], while simultaneously emphasizing supposedly Chinese characteristics such as impassivity and stoicism.{{sfnb|Hawley|1991| p= 136}}

Biggers wrote six novels in which Charlie Chan appears:
*''[[The House Without a Key]]'' (1925)
*''[[The Chinese Parrot]]'' (1926)
*''[[Behind That Curtain]]'' (1928)
*''[[The Black Camel]]'' (1929)
*''[[Charlie Chan Carries On]]'' (1930)
*''[[Keeper of the Keys]]'' (1932)