Maurice Leblanc

Maurice Marie Émile Leblanc was a French novelist and writer of short stories, known primarily as the creator of the gentleman burglar, adventurer and detective Arsène Lupin, often described as a French counterpart to Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes and Hornung's Raffles.

Refusing the career that his father had set up for him at a card factory, Leblanc instead went to Paris in 1888, to pursue writing as a journalist. But he soon turned novelist and storyteller. His first novel, Une femme (A Woman), published in 1893 was a success and was followed by other works, such as Des couples (The Couples), Voici des ailes (Here are wings) and a play La pitié, released in 1902, which was a flop. In 1905, Pierre Lafitte, the director of the monthly Je sais tout, commissioned a short story from Leblanc, with the brief that he was to combine the appeal of A.J Raffles by Ernest William Hornung and Sherlock Holmes. The result was L'Arrestation d'Arsène Lupin (The Arrest of Arsène Lupin) which was a huge success. Two years later, the book Arsène Lupin, Gentleman Burglar was released, and the rest was historywith one of the most successful series being born.