Arsene Lupin By Maurice Leblanc.
The Gentleman Thief.
Top 100 Detective Novels.
Translated by Edgar Jepson.
Arsene Lupin is a gentleman thief who appears in a series of detective and crime novels by the French writer Maurice Leblanc. The character has also appeared in a number of non-canonical sequels and numerous film, television such as Night Hood, stage play and comic book adaptations.
A contemporary of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Maurice Leblanc (1864-1941) was the creator of the character of gentleman thief Arsene Lupin who, in Francophone countries, has enjoyed a popularity as long-lasting and considerable as Sherlock Holmes in the English-speaking world.
There are twenty volumes in the Arsene Lupin series written by Leblanc himself, plus five authorized sequels written by the celebrated mystery writing team of Boileau-Narcejac, as well as various pastiches.
The character of Lupin was first introduced in a series of short stories serialized in the magazine Je sais tout, starting in No. 6, dated 15 July 1905. He was originally called Arsene Lopin, until a local politician of the same name protested, resulting in the name change.
Arsene Lupin is a literary descendant of Pierre Alexis Ponson du Terrail's Rocambole. Like him, he is often a force for good, while operating on the wrong side of the law. Those whom Lupin defeats, always with his characteristic Gallic style and panache, are worse villains than he. Lupin shares distinct similarities with E. W. Hornung's archetypal gentleman thief A. J. Raffles who first appeared in The Amateur Cracksman in 1899, but both creations can be said to anticipate and have inspired later characters such as Louis Joseph Vance's The Lone Wolf and Leslie Charteris's The Saint.