This early work was originally a 4-part play written by Maurice Leblanc
and Francis de Croisset in 1908, and subsequently novelized by Leblanc
and published in 1909 with Edgar Jepson. We are now republishing it with
a brand new introductory biography. Maurice Marie Émile Leblanc was born
on 11th November 1864 in Rouen, Normandy, France. He was a novelist and
writer of short stories, known primarily as the creator of the fictional
gentleman thief and detective, Arsène Lupin. Leblanc spent his early
education at the Lycée Pierre Corneille (in Rouen), and after studying
in several countries and dropping out of law school, he settled in Paris
and began to write fiction. From the start, Leblanc wrote both short
crime stories and longer novels - and his lengthier tomes, heavily
influenced by writers such as Flaubert and Maupassant, were critically
admired, but met with little commercial success. Leblanc was largely
considered little more than a writer of short stories for various French
periodicals when the first Arsène Lupin story appeared. It was published
as a series of stories in the magazine 'Je Sais Trout', starting on 15th
July, 1905. Clearly created at editorial request under the influence of,
and in reaction to, the wildly successful Sherlock Holmes stories, the
roguish and glamorous Lupin was a surprise success and Leblanc's fame
and fortune beckoned. In total, Leblanc went on to write twenty-one
Lupin novels or collections of short stories. On this success, he later
moved to a beautiful country-side retreat in Étreat (in the
Haute-Normandie region in north-western France), which today is a museum
dedicated to the Arsène Lupin books. Leblanc was awarded the Légion
d'Honneur - the highest decoration in France - for his services to
literature. He died in Perpignan (the capital of the Pyrénées-Orientales
department in southern France) on 6th November 1941, at the age of
seventy-six. He is buried in the prestigious Montparnasse Cemetery of
Paris.
