# Is "Arsène Lupin, Gentleman-Cambrioleur" by Maurice Leblanc a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of Arsène Lupin, Gentleman-Cambrioleur by Maurice Leblanc (Pierre Lafitte & Cie, 1907) is identified by: Pierre Lafitte & Cie, Paris, released 10 June 1907; broché (paperbound) in the publisher's pictorial wrapper, roughly 12 x 19 cm, 318 pages, with a preface by Jules Claretie of the Académie Française and the brick-red colour wrapper drawn by Henri Goussé. The French original — Pierre Lafitte & Cie, Paris, 1907 — is the true first and the only edition that can be called the first edition of the work; the nine stories had appeared previously in the magazine Je sais tout (1905–1907), which is a periodical appearance, not a book edition.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- Pierre Lafitte & Cie, Paris, released 10 June 1907; broché (paperbound) in the publisher's pictorial wrapper, roughly 12 x 19 cm, 318 pages, with a preface by Jules Claretie of the Académie Française and the brick-red colour wrapper drawn by Henri Goussé. The original issue is printed on cream laid paper (papier vergé) without watermark, and includes a photographic plate of Leblanc on coated paper and a reader competition at the rear — the paper and the Goussé wrapper are the working identification, not the printed edition number
- Critical trap: copies in original first-issue state carry a mention of "14e édition" on the wrapper/spine — Lafitte printed inflated edition numbers on the wrappers as a publicity device, so the "édition" number on a Lafitte Lupin wrapper is commercial in nature and is NOT a reliable guide to printing order and does not by itself demote a copy
- Second trap, refuted here: the volume already reads "Herlock Sholmès" — the "Sherlock Holmes" form belongs to the 1906 Je sais tout magazine appearance and was changed for rights reasons at the time the collection was compiled, so a "Sherlock Holmes" first state of the BOOK does not exist and must not be offered as a point (verified directly against the Lafitte-based text, where the Claretie preface names Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes while the story text reads Herlock Sholmès)
- Publisher imprint reads Pierre Lafitte & Cie
- Not a book-club edition (see below)

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Maurice Leblanc |
| Publisher | Pierre Lafitte & Cie |
| Year | 1907 |
| True first | American edition |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | Pierre Lafitte & Cie, Paris, released 10 June 1907; broché (paperbound) in the publisher's pictorial wrapper, roughly 12 x 19 cm, 318… |
| Book-club edition exists? | No |

## Points of issue
Pierre Lafitte & Cie, Paris, released 10 June 1907; broché (paperbound) in the publisher's pictorial wrapper, roughly 12 x 19 cm, 318 pages, with a preface by Jules Claretie of the Académie Française and the brick-red colour wrapper drawn by Henri Goussé. The original issue is printed on cream laid paper (papier vergé) without watermark, and includes a photographic plate of Leblanc on coated paper and a reader competition at the rear — the paper and the Goussé wrapper are the working identification, not the printed edition number. Critical trap: copies in original first-issue state carry a mention of "14e édition" on the wrapper/spine — Lafitte printed inflated edition numbers on the wrappers as a publicity device, so the "édition" number on a Lafitte Lupin wrapper is commercial in nature and is NOT a reliable guide to printing order and does not by itself demote a copy. Second trap, refuted here: the volume already reads "Herlock Sholmès" — the "Sherlock Holmes" form belongs to the 1906 Je sais tout magazine appearance and was changed for rights reasons at the time the collection was compiled, so a "Sherlock Holmes" first state of the BOOK does not exist and must not be offered as a point (verified directly against the Lafitte-based text, where the Claretie preface names Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes while the story text reads Herlock Sholmès).

## Is this the true first?
The French original — Pierre Lafitte & Cie, Paris, 1907 — is the true first and the only edition that can be called the first edition of the work; the nine stories had appeared previously in the magazine Je sais tout (1905–1907), which is a periodical appearance, not a book edition. The first American edition is Harper & Brothers, New York, 1907, as "The Exploits of Arsène Lupin", translated by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos, and an English issue of 1907 appeared under the title "Arsène Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar"; the relative order of the two English-language issues is asserted by dealers but was not confirmed here. All English-language issues are translations and are collected as first editions in English only — never as the true first. Note that the Holmes/Sholmès renaming recurs in the English texts as "Holmlock Shears".

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
No book-club issue applies to the 1907 Lafitte publication. Reprint/later-issue tells: Lafitte reprinted the title heavily and the wrapper edition mentions cannot be used to date a copy; work instead from the cream laid (vergé) paper, the Goussé brick-red wrapper, and the publisher's advertisements at the rear — the rear wrapper of the early state heads "Les aventures extraordinaires d'Arsène Lupin" with a short list of titles, and later reprints list further Leblanc titles published after 1907, so an advertisement list containing later titles rules out an early copy. From 1914 the text also appeared in fascicules, and after November 1916 these were folded into a new collection whose name appears on post-war reprints.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *Arsène Lupin, Gentleman-Cambrioleur* by Maurice Leblanc a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/ars-ne-lupin-gentleman-cambrioleur
CC BY 4.0. Part of the Canonical First-Edition Points of Issue dataset (https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/api/first-edition-titles.json). Last reviewed 2026-07-04.