ETRETAT: MAURICE LEBLANC

-The creator of the famous fictional gentleman thief Arsene Lupin-

Etretat is a commune in the Seine-Martime department in Normandy in north-western France. The small town is situated about 32km north-east of Le Havre

. The French novelist and writer Maurice Leblanc wrote many of his famous books about the fictional gentleman thief Arsene Lupin  in Etretat. He was the owner of a nice house which has been made a museum: Le clos Arsene Lupin. I discovered the museum during a private visit to the small town.

The fictional gentleman thief Arsene Lupin has been appeared in books, movies and television programmes. The French novelist Maurice Leblanc was born in 1864 in Rouen in Normandy. He died in 1941 in Perpignan. Maurice Leblanc who wrote about twenty-one novels and collections of short stories, was influenced by the French novelist Gustave Flaubert and Guy de Maupassant.