Fergus Hume (1856-1932)

French authors and authors translated from the English both feature, albeit in different proportions in Tallandier’s original series “Les Romans Mystérieux” (1910-1919). For eight authors in the Series writing in French, eleven write in English. Among  the latter,  two authors hail from Ireland, Henry de Vere Stacpoole, from  Dún Laoghaire, and   Lillie Thomas Meade, from Cork.

Here is the complete list of these 19 pioneers  in a then emerging genre, which was yet to be widely called “roman policier”. They are ordered here by chronology of birth. Below is a series of graphs measuring the  popularity of the most famous of them over different periods of time,  measured by their name’s occurrences in French and in English books retrieved by Google books.

Jules Lermina (Paris, 1839- Paris, 1915)

Charles Foleÿ (Paris, 1861-1956)

(click on the graphs to see better)

 Fergus Hume, Victorian Best-Seller

The Domination of Jules Lermina