The Confessions of Arsène Lupin Maurice Leblanc - This early work by Maurice Leblanc was originally published in 1913 and we are now republishing it with a brand new introductory biography. "The Confessions of Arsene Lupin" is a collection of nine stories - or confessions - of the celebrated gentleman thief Arsene Lupin. Maurice Marie Emile Leblanc was born on 11th November 1864 in Rouen, Normandy, France. He was a novelist and writer of short stories, known primarily as the creator of the fictional gentleman thief and detective, Arsene Lupin. Leblanc spent his early education at the Lycee Pierre Corneille (in Rouen), and after studying in several countries and dropping out of law school, he settled in Paris and began to write fiction. From the start, Leblanc wrote both short crime stories and longer novels - and his lengthier tomes, heavily influenced by writers such as Flaubert and Maupassant, were critically admired, but met with little commercial success. Leblanc was largely considered little more than a writer of short stories for various French periodicals when the first Arsene Lupin story appeared. It was published as a series of stories in the magazine 'Je Sais Trout', starting on 15th July, 1905. Clearly created at editorial request under the influence of, and in reaction to, the wildly successful Sherlock Holmes stories, the roguish and glamorous Lupin was a surprise success and Leblanc's fame and fortune beckoned. In total, Leblanc went on to write twenty-one Lupin novels or collections of short stories. On this success, he later moved to a beautiful country-side retreat in Etreat (in the Haute-Normandie region in north-western France), which today is a museum dedicated to the Arsene Lupin books. Leblanc was awarded the Legion d'Honneur - the highest decoration in France - for his services to literature. He died in Perpignan (the capital of the Pyrenees-Orientales department in southern France) on 6th November 1941, at the age of seventy-six. He is buried in the prestigious Montparnasse Cemetery of Paris."

モーリス・ルブランが描く「ルパンの告白」は、単なる盗賊譚を超え、人間性の裏表を鮮やかに抉り出した至高の短編集です。フローベールらに連なる写実主義の系譜を継ぐルブランの筆致は、優雅な文体の中に鋭い心理描写を忍ばせています。ルパンの魅力は、完全無欠な英雄像ではなく、時には苦悩し、恋に揺れる「生身の告白」にこそ宿っているのです。 数多の映像化作品が彼の華麗なアクションを称える一方で、原作のテキストは映像では零れ落ちがちな「内面の機微」を深く補完します。知略の裏にある孤独や哲学を、ルブランの流麗な文章で辿る体験は、映像版との強烈なシナジーを生み出します。変幻自在な紳士怪盗の真実を、ぜひその肉声から感じ取ってください。