Elmer Gantry (Unabridged Edition)

Lewis did research for the novel by observing the work of various preachers in Kansas City in his so-called "Sunday School" meetings on Wednesdays. He first worked with William L. "Big Bill" Stidger (not Burris Jenkins), pastor of the Linwood Boulevard Methodist Episcopal Church in Kansas City, Missouri. Stidger introduced Lewis to many other clergymen, among them the Reverend L.M. Birkhead, a Unitarian and an agnostic. Lewis preferred the liberal Birkhead to the conservative Stidger, and on his second visit to Kansas City, Lewis chose Birkhead as his guide. Other KC ministers Lewis interviewed included Burris Jenkins, Earl Blackman, I. M. Hargett, and Bert Fiske.[citation needed]

The character of Sharon Falconer was based on elements in the career of Aimee Semple McPherson, an American evangelist who founded the Pentecostal Christian denomination known as the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel in 1927.