New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1900-09-15
EMILE GABORAU.
A MASTER IN MODERN FRENCH FIG
TON


MONSIEUR LECOQ Translated from the French
of Emile Gaboriau. Illustrated by Bayard
Jones. limo PIP 1866. Charles Scribner's Sons.
S fqR BY 'R " tfnin 81
Emo PIP 537. Charles scribner's Sons.
The FRENCH Of Emile GaboTfau. Illustrated by
BayaTd Jones. 12mo, PIP. $50 Charles Serb
THE MYSTERY OF ORCIvAL. Translated from
the French of Emile Gabori ria illustrated by
THE WIDOW ILE5RoUGGE, Translated from the
Louise L. Huestis. limo. pp. 436. Charles
OTHER PEOPLES MONEY. Translated from the
French Of Emile Gaboriau Illustrated by Vic
tor Perard 12mo, PIP. 533. Charles Scribner's
Mr.. Andrew Lang says somewhere that he
has no patience with those people who say that
they cannot read Dickens. For our own part.
have no patience with those people who say
that they cannot read detective stories, and
therefore imply that to them Emile Gaboriau is
nothing but a name. He is rs a matter of fact,
one Of the cleverest novelists France ever pro-
duced. A contemporary OF the great roman
ticists, he Indifferent to the motives which
generally employed their art. He would not
ruff1e it with Dumas. had he any taste for
the material which chiefly occupied Victor
Hugo. There may be some things in Les Mis-
abes" with which other things in the works of
Gaboriau can fairly be compared; there is a
certain kinship, no doubt, between Javert and
Monsieur Lecoq' But the whole tenor of Ga
boriau's writings places them in a category
apart. He is pre-eminently the novelist of in
trigue, OF crime and detectives, exploited for
their own sakes BaIzac calculating the his
tory Of a crime, is of course infinitely greater;
but the novelist Of the "Comedie Humane had
too many irons in the fire to wreak himself with
more enthusiasm one than on another. For
and the six volumes enumerated above form a
monument to his peculiar gift.
1t is pleasure to see them and to turn over
once more the well remembered pages They
have their defects, OF course GabOriau never
SHE'D at improbability. but leaped over it
with the of a thoroughbred taking five
barred fence His confidence communicates it.
self TO the reader In cold blood one smiles at
the transparent expedients OF the novelist
Nothing could be droller than the meeting in
the last chapter of File No. 113" between Lee
cog and his former sweetheart Nina. The re-
ations of the two are, in fact, from start to fin
sh, incredible they could well be. But this
matters nothing to the reader, who is prepared
to meet Gaboriau half way and to enjoy the in
finite amusement which that author provides. He
may be compared dsadvantageously on half a
dozen counts with Poe, with Sue, with the ere
! ator OF Sherlock Holmes with anybody you
Ike 10 choose. but in the long the fidelity
of the judicious reader remains mistaken.
! These books are all so ingenious; they are so
| full of surprise; they composed with such
/ cleverness and are written with so much spirit.
! Gaboriau mad style and accordingly, de-
nlands no great distinction In his translator The
present edition has apparently been prepared
! by various hands none remarkable, but all ade-
quate The six works ii contains were issued
at different times in this country by different
publishers. Holt e. Williams brought out 1.-THE