The Arsène Lupin Omnibus (4-books-in-1)

Book excerpt: The inspiration behind the smash-hit Netflix series. Arsène Lupin is a fictional gentleman thief and master of disguise created in 1905 by French writer Maurice Leblanc and first introduced in a series of short stories serialized in the magazine Je sais tout. Arsène Lupin, Gentleman Burglar (published in French as Arsène Lupin, gentleman-cambrioleur) is the first collection of stories by Maurice Leblanc recounting the adventures of Arsène Lupin, released on 10 June 1907. Containing the first eight stories depicting the character, each was first published in the French magazine Je sais tout. The first story, The Arrest of Arsène Lupin, was published in the magazine on 15 July 1905. The seventh story in this collection features English detective Sherlock Holmes, changed in subsequent publications to "Herlock Sholmes" after protests from Arthur Conan Doyle's lawyers. This match of wits continues in the second collection of stories, Arsène Lupin versus Herlock Sholmes. However, the second work was actually a play subsequently novelized by the author along with Edgar Jepson, which appears here as the second work; and the Herlock Sholmes as the third work. In The Hollow Needle, Arsène Lupin is opposed by Isidore Beautrelet, a young but gifted amateur detective, who is still in high school but who is poised to give Arsène Lupin a big headache. In the Arsène Lupin universe, the Hollow Needle is the second secret of Marie Antoinette and Alessandro Cagliostro, the hidden fortune of the Kings of France, as revealed to Arsène Lupin by Josephine Balsamo in the novel The Countess of Cagliostro (1924). The Mystery of the Hollow Needle hides a secret that the Kings of France have been handing down since the time of Julius Caesar... and now Arsène Lupin has mastered it. The legendary needle contains the most fabulous treasure ever imagined, a collection of queens' dowries, pearls, rubies, sapphires and diamonds... the fortune of the kings of France. Lupin was featured in 17 novels and 39 novellas by Maurice Leblanc, with the novellas or short stories collected into book form for a total of 24 books. This omnibus collects the first four works including Arsène Lupin-Gentleman Burglar; Arsène Lupin Versus Herlock Sholmes; The Hollow Needle and bonus novel Arsène Lupin (from a play by leblanc novelized by Edgar Jepson).