Maurice Leblanc

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Maurice Leblanc

Maurice-Marie-Émile Leblanc (11 November, 1864 - 6 November, 1941) was a French

France

France , officially the French Republic , is a country whose Metropolitan France is located in Western Europe and that also comprises various Overseas departments and territories of France....
novelist and writer of short stories

Short Stories

Short Stories may refer to one of the following.*A plural for Short story*Short Stories , a collection by Liam O'Flaherty*Short Stories *Short Stories , a 1954 collection by O....
, known primarily as the creator of the fictional gentleman thief

Gentleman thief

In the Victorian vernacular, a gentleman thief is a particularly well-behaving and apparently well bred thief. A "gentleman" is usually, but not always, a man with an inherited title of nobility and inherited wealth, who need not work for a living....
and detective

Detective

A detective is an investigator, either a member of a police agency or a private person. The latter may be known as private investigators . Informally, and primarily in fiction, a detective is any licensed or unlicensed person who solves crimes, including historical crimes, or looks into records....
Arsène Lupin

Arsène Lupin

Ars?ne Lupin is a fictional character who appears in a book series of detective fiction / crime fiction novels written by France writer Maurice Leblanc, as well as a number of non-canonical sequels and numerous film, television, stage play and comic book adaptations....
, often described as a French counterpart to Conan Doyle

Arthur Conan Doyle

Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle, Deputy Lieutenant was a Scotland author most noted for his stories about the Detective fiction Sherlock Holmes, which are generally considered a major innovation in the field of crime fiction, and for the adventures of Professor Challenger....
's creation Sherlock Holmes

Sherlock Holmes

Sherlock Holmes is a fictional character of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, who first appeared in publication in 1887. He is the creation of Scotland-born author and physician Sir Arthur Conan Doyle....
.

Biography
Leblanc was born in Rouen

Rouen

Rouen is the historical capital city of Normandy, in northwestern France on the River Seine, and currently the capital of the Haute-Normandie r?gion in France....
, Normandy

Normandy

Normandy is a geographical region corresponding to the former Duchy of Normandy. It is situated along the coast of France south of the English Channel between Brittany and Picardy and comprises territory in northern France and the Channel Islands....
.

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Encyclopedia

Maurice-Marie-Émile Leblanc (11 November, 1864 - 6 November, 1941) was a French

France

Short Stories

Gentleman thief

Detective

Arsène Lupin

Arthur Conan Doyle

Sherlock Holmes

Biography

Leblanc was born in Rouen

Rouen

Rouen is the historical capital city of Normandy, in northwestern France on the River Seine, and currently the capital of the Haute-Normandie r?gion in France....
, Normandy

Normandy

Paris

Paris is the Capital of France and the country's largest city. It is situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the ?le-de-France Regions of France ....
and began to write fiction, both short crime stories and longer novels; his novels, heavily influenced by writers like Gustave Flaubert

Gustave Flaubert

Gustave Flaubert was a France writer who is counted among the greatest Western literature. He is known especially for his first published novel, Madame Bovary , and for his scrupulous devotion to his art and style....
and Guy de Maupassant

Guy de Maupassant

Guy de Maupassant was a popular 19th-century France writer and considered one of the fathers of the modern short story.A prot?g? of Gustave Flaubert, Maupassant's stories are characterized by their economy of style and their efficient, effortless d?nouement....
, 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 in a series of short stories serialized in the magazine

Magazine

for quarterly in Heraldry see Quartering Magazines, periodicals, glossies or serials are publications, generally published on a regular schedule, containing a variety of Article , generally financed by advertising, by a purchase price, by pre-paid magazine subscription, or all three....
Je Sais Tout, starting in No. 6, dated 15 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.

The character of Lupin might have been based by Leblanc on French anarchist Marius Jacob

Marius Jacob

Alexandre Jacob , known as Marius Jacob, was a French anarchism illegalism. A clever burglar equipped with a sharp sense of humour, capable of great generosity towards his victims, he became one of the models for Maurice Leblanc character Arsene Lupin....
, whose trial made headlines in March 1905; it is also possible that Leblanc had also read Octave Mirbeau

Octave Mirbeau

Octave Mirbeau was a French journalist, art critic, pamphleteer, novelist, and playwright, who achieved celebrity in Europe and great success among the public, while still appealing to the literary and artistic avant-garde....
's comedy Scrupules (1902), whose main character is a gentleman thief. It was not influenced by E. W. Hornung's gentleman thief, A.J. Raffles, created in 1899, whom Leblanc had not read.

Some lupinophiles/lupinologists/lupinomaniacs disturbingly but somewhat convincingly argue (André Compte-Sponville, François George in Preuves de l'existence d'Arsène Lupin) that Lupin really existed and that Leblanc was thus his mere historiographer.

By 1907 Leblanc had graduated to writing full-length Lupin novels, and the reviews and sales were so good that Leblanc effectively dedicated the rest of his career to working on the Lupin stories. Like Conan Doyle, who often appeared embarrassed or hindered by the success of Sherlock Holmes and seemed to regard his success in the field of crime fiction as a detraction from his more "respectable" literary ambitions, Leblanc also appeared to have resented Lupin's success. Several times, he tried to create other characters, such as private eye Jim Barnett, but eventually merged them with Lupin. He continued to pen Lupin tales well into the 1930s.

Leblanc also wrote two notable science fiction

Science fiction

Science fiction is a broad genre of fiction that often involves speculations based on current or future science or technology. Science fiction is found in books, art, television, films, games, theatre, and other media....
novels: Les Trois Yeux (1919) in which a scientist makes televisual contact with three-eyed Venus

Venus

Venus is the second-closest planet to the Sun, orbiting it every 224.7 Earth days. The planet is named after Venus , the Roman mythology goddess of love....
ians, and Le Formidable Evènement (1920), in which an earthquake

Earthquake

An earthquake is the result of a sudden release of energy in the Earth's crust that creates seismic waves. Earthquakes are recorded with a seismometer, also known as a seismograph....
creates a new landmass between England

England

native_name =|conventional_long_name = England|common_name = England|image_flag = Flag of England.svg|image_coat = England COA.svg|symbol_type = Royal Coat of Arms...
and France

Leblanc was awarded the Légion d'Honneur
Légion d'honneur

The L?gion d'honneur or Ordre national de la L?gion d'honneur is a France order established by Napoleon I of France, First Consul of the French First Republic, on May 19, 1802....
for his services to literature, and died in Perpignan

Perpignan

Perpignan is a commune in France and the pr?fecture of the Pyr?n?es-Orientales D?partement in France in southern France. Perpignan was the capital of the provinces of France and county of Roussillon ....
in 1941. Georgette Leblanc

Georgette Leblanc

Georgette Leblanc was a France opera soprano, actress, author, and the sister of novelist Maurice Leblanc. She became particularly associated with the works of Jules Massenet and was an admired interpreter of the title role in Bizet's Carmen....
was his sister.

Selected bibliography

(1893)
(1897)
(1898)
(1899)
(1901)
(1901)
(1904)
(1904)
, Play (1906)
(The Hollow Needle) (1909)
(1911)
(1919)
(1920)
(1920)
(1922)
(1923)
(1925)
(1930)
(1932)
(1933)
(1934)
(1934)
(1935)
(1937)

External links

, Maison Maurice Leblanc (museum)