"The Crystal Stopper" is another favourite mystery novel by Leblanc
where during a burglary at the home of Deputy Daubrecq, a crime is
committed and two accomplices of Arsène Lupin are arrested by the
police. This early work by Maurice Leblanc was originally published in
1912 and 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. 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 is buried in the prestigious Montparnasse Cemetery of
Paris.
