Although Leblanc concluded his book with the first of several meetings between the wily Lupin and Arthur Conan Doyle's detective Sherlock Holmes, some English publishers were wary of trading on that character's name, so he was introduced as Hemlock Shears. Of all the novels in this sphere that I have read, Leblanc's are generally the wittiest - but collecting his work in English is not without challenges.įor one thing, the later translations can be devlishly hard to find and tend to be costly for another, the early books exist in a number of different translations - the first Lupin book, Arsene Lupin - Gentleman Cambrioleur (1907), appeared under different imprints - and in different translations! - as ARSENE LUPIN - THE GENTLEMAN THIEF, THE BLONDE LADY, THE CASE OF THE GOLDEN BLONDE and THE ARREST OF ARSENE LUPIN. As a collector of French pulp fiction of the early 20th century - by which I mean the novels of Gaston Leroux, the adventures of Fantomas by Pierre Souvestre and Marcel Allain, the exploits of Judex and Belphagor and Chantecoq by Arthur Bernede and more - I am proud to have amassed most of Maurice Leblanc's novels and stories about the gentleman thief Arsene Lupin that were translated for the English market.
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