Arsène Lupin
fictional gentleman thief and master of disguise created by French writer Maurice Leblanc
Arsène Lupin (French: [aʁsɛn lypɛ̃]) is a fictional gentleman thief and master of disguise created in 1905 by French writer Maurice Leblanc. The character was first introduced in a series of short stories serialized in the magazine Je sais tout. The first story, "The Arrest of Arsène Lupin", was published on 15 July 1905. Lupin is often described as the criminal counterpart to Sherlock Holmes, often encountering "Herlock Sholmès" in his own adventures.
The character has also appeared in a number of books by other writers as well as numerous films, stage plays, comic books and television adaptations.
Antecedents
Arsène Lupin was a literary descendant of Pierre Alexis Ponson du Terrail's fictional character Rocambole, whose adventures were published from 1857 to 1870. Like Rocambole, Lupin is often a force for good while operating on the wrong side of the law. Lupin shares similarities with E. W. Hornung's gentleman thief A. J. Raffles, whose stories were published from 1898 to 1909. Both Raffles and Lupin have inspired later characters such as Louis Joseph Vance's The Lone Wolf (created in 1914) and Leslie Charteris's The Saint (created in 1928).
Overview
Lupin was featured in 17 novels and 39 novellas by Leblanc, with the novellas or short stories collected into book form for a total of 24 books.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Arsène Lupin” as fictional gentleman thief and master of disguise created by French writer Maurice Leblanc. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the people & ideas register because the source frames it as fictional gentleman thief and master of disguise created by French writer Maurice Leblanc. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 19, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q461606. VIAF identifies the subject as 13246455. The Library of Congress control number is nb2018013648. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1905, 1857, 1870 and 1898.
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This entry incorporates text from “Arsène Lupin” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.