Who Is Arsène Lupin? The Gentleman Thief Who Outwitted 'Herlock Sholmès'

Maurice Leblanc's gentleman thief, created in 1905: his first story, his duel with a renamed Sherlock Holmes, and where to start reading.

Arsène Lupin is a fictional gentleman thief and master of disguise created in 1905 by the French writer Maurice Leblanc. He first appeared in a series of short stories in the magazine Je sais tout, beginning with "The Arrest of Arsène Lupin" on 15 July 1905. He is often described as the criminal counterpart to Sherlock Holmes, and in his own adventures he keeps running into a famous English detective called "Herlock Sholmès". Charming, patriotic, impossible to catch and often on the side of the weak, Lupin became France's answer to the great British detective.

How Lupin was born

Leblanc did not invent the gentleman criminal from nothing. Lupin is a literary descendant of Rocambole, a character by Pierre Alexis Ponson du Terrail whose adventures appeared from 1857 to 1870; like Rocambole, Lupin often does good while working on the wrong side of the law. He also resembles A. J. Raffles, the English gentleman thief created by E. W. Hornung, whose stories were published from 1898 to 1909.

In turn, Lupin and Raffles inspired later heroes, including the Lone Wolf, created in 1914, and the Saint, created in 1928. The type of the stylish thief who outsmarts both police and real criminals owes a great deal to Leblanc's character.

What kind of character is he?

Lupin's great skill is disguise. He takes on many identities to commit his crimes and, increasingly, to solve other criminals' cases. His adventures take place in France during the Belle Époque and the 1920s, and he changes with his author's times: the anarchist sympathies of the early stories fade during the First World War, when Lupin becomes strongly patriotic. Little by little, the thief turns into a detective.

One famous image of Lupin, with top hat, evening dress and monocle, does not actually come from Leblanc's text. It seems to have spread from the illustrations on the covers of the first book editions, much as the deerstalker hat became attached to Sherlock Holmes.

Lupin versus "Herlock Sholmès"

The most famous twist in Lupin's history is his rivalry with Sherlock Holmes. Leblanc brought Holmes into Lupin's world in the story "Sherlock Holmes Arrives Too Late", published in Je sais tout on 15 June 1906, in which an older Holmes meets a young Lupin for the first time. Arthur Conan Doyle objected, and the name was changed to "Herlock Sholmès", either because of copyright in the character or, as Leblanc's son claimed, at Doyle's own request.

Sholmès came back in two more stories collected as Arsène Lupin versus Herlock Sholmès, and he appears again in the battle over the secret of The Hollow Needle. When the collection was published in the United States in 1910 as The Blonde Lady, the detective became "Holmlock Shears" and his companion "Wilson". The joke name has had a long life: the international release of the video game series The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles used "Herlock Sholmes" in honour of Leblanc.

That same book contains one of the stranger details about Lupin: he is said to be a vegetarian for reasons of "hygiene", though he will eat meat on the job so as not to stand out.

How many Lupin books are there?

Leblanc wrote Lupin into 17 novels and 39 shorter stories, which were collected into 24 books in all, or 25 if you count a 1923 novel in which Lupin does not appear but the heroine solves one of his secrets. There is no fixed "canon" as there is for Sherlock Holmes, partly because some stories were first published separately and only later rewritten to include Lupin.

Some of the novels go beyond crime into fantasy. In The Island of Thirty Coffins, people fight over a radioactive "god-stone" that heals and causes mutations; in The Damsel with Green Eyes, the goal is a hidden Fountain of Youth; and in The Countess of Cagliostro, Lupin's enemy and lover is Joséphine Balsamo, said to be the granddaughter of the famous adventurer Cagliostro.

Where to start reading

The best entry point is the first collection, Arsène Lupin, Gentleman Burglar (1907), nine short stories that include his arrest and escape. After that, many readers go to Arsène Lupin versus Herlock Sholmès (1908) and the novels The Hollow Needle (1909) and 813 (1910). The Hollow Needle is linked to the real cliffs of Étretat in Normandy, which play a central part in several adventures and still attract fans.

Lupin today

Lupin has appeared in books by other writers and in many films, plays, comics and television adaptations. His fame abroad brought American film versions and manga adaptations by Japanese artists. More than a century after his first arrest, the thief who always escapes is still escaping into new stories.

Learn with Arsène Lupin: English phrases

Phrase	Meaning	Example
a gentleman thief	a polite, stylish criminal	Lupin is the classic gentleman thief.
to outwit someone	to defeat someone by being cleverer	He outwitted the police again.
to slip through someone's fingers	to escape	The thief slipped through their fingers.
a master of disguise	someone who changes appearance easily	She was a master of disguise at parties.
to have a trick up your sleeve	to have a secret plan ready	Lupin always has a trick up his sleeve.

Try this: Write three English sentences about a clever character you like, using "to outwit someone" and "to have a trick up your sleeve".