memoirs
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“Villiod, Commercial and Confidential Information Services: Inquiries, Research, Surveillance.” Poster by Leonetto Cappiello, 1909. Image Source: Capiello’s Posters. While Eugène Villiod energetically promoted his detective agency by offering diverse services and publishing multiple books on criminal activities and gambling, his entrepreneurial efforts failed to generate substantial revenues. Then, Dame Fortune smiled upon him. One of…
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Lacenaire (Marcel Herrand, left) and Count Édouard de Montray (Louis Salou, right) in Les enfants du paradis, directed by Marcel Carné (Pathé Studios, 1945). Photo: Children of Paradise (Les enfants du paradis), The Criterion Collection DVD (2012). It only took the criminal court three days to convict Lacenaire of theft, murder, and attempted murder. In…
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Dustjacket Cover of Vidocq: The Personal Memoirs of the First Great Detective, trans. Edwin Gile Rich (Cambridge, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin, 1935). Author’s Collection. The primary value of Vidocq’s Mémoires lay in its formulation of the detective as a heroic character. As French historian Dominique Kalifa has convincingly shown, nineteenth-century published accounts of the Parisian bas-fonds…
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Frontispiece portrait by Marie Gabrielle Coignet, in Mémoires de Vidocq, chef de la police de sûreté, jusqu’en 1827, vol. 1 (Paris: Tenon, 1828). Wikipedia Commons: Musée Carnavalet, Paris. In both fact and fiction, Eugène-François Vidocq is often called the first modern detective. His life and exploits are recounted in the Mémoires (1828-1829), a sprawling four-volume collection…
Shady Detectives, Elegant Criminals & Dark Avengers 