Gaboriau, Emile.

THE WIDOW LEROUGE.

Boston: Estes & Lauriat, 1873.

1st Edition. Hardcover. Gaboriau, Emile. THE WIDOW LEROUGE. Boston: Estes & Lauriat, 1873. This is the First American Edition and First English Language Edition of: L'affaire Lerouge, [Paris:1866]. Tall 8vo., 156pp., blind embossed brick coloured cloth, gilt stamped on the upper cover and spine. Some wear and tear as expected on the covers with slightly loose stitching on page 64 as shown, otherwise tight and a very good or better copy of this unusually scarce Haycraft-Queen Cornerstone. Lecoq anticipated Sherlock Holmes by 20 years. - Gaboriau's first detective novel, introduced a young police officer named Monsieur Lecoq, who was the hero in three of Gaboriau's later detective novels. Monsieur Lecoq was based on a real-life thief turned police officer, Eugène François Vidocq (1775-1857), whose memoirs, Les Vrais Mémoires de Vidocq, mixed fiction and fact. It may also have been influenced by the villainous Monsieur Lecoq, one of the main protagonists of Féval's Les Habits Noirs book series.

Item #34425    Price: US$1,650.00