Cabinet of American Illustration/Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (Digital file no. cai 2a14688)

(1832?–73). Best known as the Father of the Detective Novel, the novelist Émile Gaboriau has also been described as the Edgar Allan Poe of France. Gaboriau’s prolific imagination and acute observation generated 21 novels in 13 years.

Émile Gaboriau was born in Saujon, France, on Nov. 9, 1832/33/35 (the exact year is unknown). He made his reputation with the publication in 1866 of L’Affaire Lerouge (The Widow Lerouge) after having published several other books and miscellaneous writings. His later books, many of them classics of their kind, include Le Crime d’Orcival (1867; The Mystery of Orcival), Monsieur Lecoq (1868), Les Esclaves de Paris (1868; The Slaves of Paris), La Vie infernale (1870; The Count’s Millions), and L’Argent des autres (1874; Other People’s Money). Gaboriau created the fictional detectives Père Tabaret and Monsieur Lecoq; the latter was a precursor of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes. Gaboriau died on or around Oct. 1, 1873, in Paris.