Arsène Lupin

Arsène Lupin is originally a 4-part play written by Maurice Leblanc and Francis de Croisset in 1908, and was subsequently novelized by Leblanc and published in 1909. First translated into English in 1909 by Edgar Jepson.

Arsène Lupin is the gentleman burglar Leblanc had created in 1905: a thief who announces his robberies in advance, works in disguise, and cares more for the elegance of a theft than for what it brings in.

Here he appears under the identity of the Duke of Charmerace, planning to strip a rich family's house of everything worth taking while Chief-Inspector Guerchard closes in on him — and while he falls in love with Sonia, the young woman employed there as a secretary.

"The rays of the September sun flooded the great halls of the old château of the Dukes of Charmerace, lighting up with their mellow glow the spoils of so many ages and many lands, jumbled together with the execrable taste which so often afflicts those whose only standard of value is money...."