Chéri-Bibi

Arthème Fayard (with Starace and his son Jan leading the way with their covers) have very much come to be seen as the defining publisher of sensational novels of the first decades of the twentieth century. Of course this is in large part down to Fantômas, as well as their reprints of some of the pioneering nineteenth century titles, but they were also publishing some of the other leading authors of the genre. Gaston Leroux is best known for The Phantom of the Opera and the series of novels featuring the boy journalist-detective Joseph Rouletabille. Fayard did not publish these, but did manage some of his other stories, including this first collection of the adventures of Chéri-Bibi, a heroically strong butcher's apprentice framed for murder and sent to Devil's Island. The story had been serialised in Le Matin in 1913, with Fayard producing this volume a year later.