Before You Begin

Before you begin.

He robs only the great houses, always in evening dress, and he leaves a calling card. He is caught on the opening page of this book — arrested aboard a transatlantic liner in the middle of the ocean — and it changes nothing at all, for Arsène Lupin walks out of every prison, every trap, and every disguise exactly when it pleases him. Gentleman, thief, actor, and gentleman again, he is the most charming criminal in all of literature.

Maurice Leblanc created Lupin in 1905, and the French adored him at once as their answer to Sherlock Holmes — indeed, in the last of these nine adventures, the great English detective himself arrives to match wits with Lupin, and arrives too late. Across ships and châteaux, prisons and Parisian mansions, Lupin steals a queen's necklace, a black pearl, and the secret of a submarine, dupes the dogged Inspector Ganimard again and again, and does it all with a wit and an elegance that make the reader cheer for the burglar.

These are stories to be savoured — puzzles of disguise and escape, told with a wink, in which the cleverest man in France is always, somehow, three moves ahead.

This illustrated edition opens with a gallery of Lupin and his adversaries, a map of his adventures, and their great scenes; and as you read, six of his most famous exploits unfold as visual movements — recap plates you unlock along the way, each gathering together the case just closed. Turn the page, and make the acquaintance of Arsène Lupin.