Maurice Marie Emile Leblanc was born on 11th December 1864 in Rouen, Normandy.Leblanc studied in various countries before deciding to drop out of law school and settle in Paris to become a writer.His initial writing assignments were limited to short stories for the many French periodicals as their publication as cheap but regular entertainment for the masses exploded across Europe. However his reputation and his popularity were to significantly change on 15th July 1905 with the publication of his first Arsene Lupin story in the magazine Je sais tout. There is little doubt that the initial concept of Lupin, the Gentleman Thief, was created to compete with the immense success of the Sherlock Holmes stories by Arthur Conan Doyle and also Raffles, the Gentleman Thief created by E W Hornung. Lupin was driven by an ambition to clear his father’s name and in the meantime crimes and capers were pursued with Gallic glamour and more than a touch of the devilish rogue about him. By 1907, Leblanc was writing full-length Lupin novels. With their rocketing sales and fervent reviews Leblanc had created an extremely successful character that would now overshadow his career and, as the reviews and sales were so good, Leblanc effectively now dedicated the rest of his career to working on the Lupin stories. With this sort of success as a writer Leblanc felt somewhat hemmed in and began to resent the constant need to deliver yet another Lupin story. He attempted to create other characters and to pursue other perhaps more literary avenues but Lupin overshadowed everything and there was always the clamour to deliver the next. Leblanc would continue to write Lupin stories well into the 1930s. In all he wrote 21 novels or short story collections on this most wanted of characters.Of his other works two were well regarded science fiction novels ’Les Trois Yeux’ (1919), in which a scientist makes televisual contact with three-eyed Venusians, and ’Le Formidable Evenement’ (1920), a huge earthquake creates a new territory between England and France.In 1941 France rewarded her literary son with the Legion d’Honneur for his services to literature.Maurice Marie Emile Leblanc died in Perpignan on 6th November 1941.
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