A Review by David L.

Vineyard: EUGENE SUE The

Mysteries of Paris.
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A REVIEW BY DAVID L. VINEYARD:

EUGENE SUE The Mysteries of Paris. W. Dugdale, UK, hardcover, 1844. Harper &
Brothers, US, 1843. Translation of Les Mysteries de Paris: Paris, 1843-4. Silent film: Esclair,
1909 (scw & dir: Victorin Jasset). Also: SCAGL, 1913. Also: Cinematographes Phocea, 1922,
as Les Mysteries de Paris (scw: Charles Burguet, Andre Paul Antoine; dir: Burguet). Also:
Bennett, 1922, as The Secrets of Paris (scw: Dorothy Farnum; dir; Kenneth Webb). Sound film:
Franco-American, 1937, as Les Mysteries de Paris (The Mysteries of Paris) (scw & dir: Felix
Ganders). Also: Unidex, 1962, as Les Mysteries de Paris (The Mysteries of Paris) (scw: Jean
Halain, Pierre Foucault, Diego Fabbri; dir: Andre Hunebelle).

This feulliton, or French newspaper serial, was one of the most influential novels of the 19th
Century. While it is little known today, when it first ran as a weekly serial it outsold Alexandre
Dumas peres The Count of Monte Cristo, and was praised by no less a critic than Victor Hugo,
who called its author, Eugene Sue, the Dickens of Paris.
Despite its title, Mysteries of Paris is neither a mystery nor a detective story in any formal
sense, it is however an early example of the crime novel and thriller and helped to establish many
of the tropes of popular fiction that still linger today. Heroes from Zorro to the Shadow to
Batman owe a debt to Sues Prince Rodolphe (in some editions Rudolph), the mysterious man in
black haunting the back alleys of crime and poverty ridden Paris.
Eugene Sue was a minor nobleman with a political bent. He was an avid socialist and critic of
the Catholic Church particularly the Jesuits who feature as the villains of his classic The
Wandering J ew. He spent much of his career in semi-exile for his criticisms of Louis Napoleon,
like his friend and fellow author Hugo.
Sue also has an ironic role in history: In one volume of his massive Mysteries of the People,
Sue created a fictional document detailing how a Jesuit conspiracy operated and secretly ran the
world when this document was plagiarized by a Russian propagandist and the references to
the Jesuits changed to Jews the document became the inflammatory and wholly fictional
Protocols of Zion; an irony that would have horrified the liberal Sue.

But Sues role in popular literature is secure with his two best known works, The Wandering
J ew and Mysteries of Paris, the latter followed by countless imitations, with Mysteries of
London, Prague, Berlin, and even New York to follow. Its influence extended well into the early
20th Century (fans of the TV series Friends might recall the Mysteries of New York poster on
the wall in Joey and Chandlers apartment).
Prince Rodolphe of Gerolstein appears in Paris as a mysterious man in black. He is on the trail
of Fleur de Mal, a child orphaned by an act of carelessness in his youth.
As he searches the lowest and vilest of Paris slums he becomes an early model for the justice
figure or avenger, seeking both redemption for himself and justice and mercy for the
downtrodden but good people he finds driven to crime and degradation by poverty and social
injustice, befriending and reforming many of the criminals and semi-criminals he encounters and
even forming a sort of thieves court with himself as judge which deals out fair but swift justice
among a people who have no trust of the corrupt real courts and laws written and administered to
oppress them.
Sue threw himself into the novel with real zeal, and his use of Parisian street argot is a
remarkable accomplishment. Any historian wishing to know what life was like in the streets of
mid-19th Century Paris would be advised to carefully read Sues novel. Like Dickens to whom
he was often compared, he had a real affection for the people of the streets of Paris though a
realistic eye for detail. In some ways Sues modern disciples are writers like W.R. Burnett,
Elmore Leonard, Joseph Wambaugh, and George V. Higgins.

There is, as might be expected, a good deal of melodrama, pathos, bathos, and hokum in the
novel. Its serial origins show, and at some 1300 pages in unabridged editions, it is far from a
casual read. It gives the term Victorian triple-decker new meaning.
But it is also filled with exciting scenes, interesting characters, and if Sue lacks Dickens more
literary qualities, he quite shares his ability to tell a story and to involve the reader in the lives of
his creations. Mysteries of Paris is what a friend of mine used to call a thumping good read.
Mysteries of Paris has been filmed and adapted to other media countless times since the silent
era in many languages. There are television mini-series and even animated versions, and it was
one of the early books adapted by Gilbertons Classics Illustrated Comics.
Perhaps the best film is a 1962 Arthur Hunebele production with Jean Marais (Orphee, La
Belle et la Bete) as Roldolphe, Dany Robin as Irene, and Jill Haworth as Fleur de Mal. By
necessity it is a very abridged version of the story, but told in a lively manner by a director best
remembered for his campy Fantomas films with Marais in a double role as the super criminal and
his nemesis Juve.

Mysteries is still widely read in Europe and considered a pop classic. It is less well-known
here, in part because there has never been a really good translation of the novel nor an annotated
edition, both of which are long overdue.
But Mysteries is an important book in the development of the mystery genre, taking inspiration
from Poe, Dickens, Collins and others, and in turn inspiring many of the works to come.
Currently there are several editions available and some older reprints are relatively inexpensive
to collect. I would suggest you avoid the abridged editions and go for the massive entire book.
You might also want to read The Wandering J ew which was recently chosen by Thomas Disch
for the 100 Best Horror Novels of all time.
Sue really is neglected in this country and unjustly so. This is a novel that deserves to be
rediscovered.
NOTE: The bibliographic information given at the top of this review was taken from the
Revised Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin, as just now corrected. (The publisher of the first
UK edition has been changed to the one you see above.)
[UPDATE] 08-21-09. Based on Davids statement: Mysteries of Paris has been filmed and
adapted to other media countless times since the silent era in many languages, and using
IMDB as a guide, Al Hubin and I have come up with the following films, etc., which should be
added to those listed in the credits above. These will appear in the next installment to the online
Addenda to the Revised Crime Fiction I V:
? Silent film: Pathe Freres, 1911, as Les Mysteries de Paris (dir: Albert Capellani)
? Silent film: Hub Cinemagraph, 1920, as The Mysteries of Paris (scw: Stanley J. Worris; dir:
Ed Cornell)
? Silent film: Phocea Film, 1922, as Les Mysteries de Paris (scw: Andre-Paul Antoine, Charles
Burquet; dir: Burquet)
? Film: DisCina, 1943, as Les Mysteries de Paris (scw: Maurice Bessy; dir: Jacques de
Baroncelli)
? TV movie: France, 1961, as Les Mysteries de Paris (scw: Claude Santelli; dir: Marcel
Cravenne)
? TV movie (miniseries): Caravelle International, as Les Mysteries de Paris (scw: Mario
Benedicto; dir: Andre Michel)