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November 9, 2022

Almanac of Story Tellers: Emile Gaboriau

Every day brings a new story.  And each day contributes to story telling -- in prose and in poetry, in art and in music, on the stage, on the screen, and, of course, in books

Today is the story of Nov. 9th
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    It is the 313th day of the year, leaving 52 days remaining in 2022. 
   
    On this date in 1832, the French author Émile Gaboriau was born Saujon, France.


    He was among the first writers to tell detective stories with a fictional police investigator who resolved intriguing crimes and wrongdoings. Yes, before there was Sherlock Holmes, Gaboriau created Monsieur Lecoq as the prototype of the methodical, deductive detective.

    But Arthur Conan Doyle came along some 20 years later, and his Holmes made people forget his predecessor. Indeed, Holmes once described Lecoq as "a miserable bungler."

    But it was Gaboriau who is credited with breaking the mold on the genre. He is sometimes called the French Edgar Allan Poe, another writer of detective fiction.

    Gaboriau wrote 21 novels in 13 years. But it was his first detective novel, L'Affaire Lerouge, published in 1866, that gave him fame and an international following. It introduced Lecoq as a young police officer. The character may have been based on a real-life thief turned policeman who memoir may have been based on a true story.

    Nonetheless, the book was a hit, and Gaboriau was off. He started churning out a book a year, including Le Crime d'OrcivalMonsieur Lecoq, and L'Argent des autres (translated in English as Other People's Money or A Great Robbery). The books were serialized in magazines and other periodicals of the day.

    He died in 1873.

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