Simenon's Inspector Maigret 36 Quai des Orfèvres Paris... The Maigret Forum This is not a static website. It changes almost daily. The Maigret " Forum ," an open bulletin board for notices, opinions, information and discussion related to Maigret and Simenon, has become the most active feature of this site. It's where new books, websites, articles and features are first announced and displayed, and includes an indexed archive of the entire past Forum... back to 1997! Click here for the current Forum. Here's a recent sample - Simenon - Loustal - Maigret 12/7/16  A new edition of Simenon's (non-Maigret) story "Un nouveau dans la ville" has just been issued by Omnibus, illustrated by Loustal, in which Loustal gets equal billing with Simenon on the cover...

The story, written at Desert Sands, Tucson, Arizona in 1949, and published the following year, was translated into English by Bernard Lechtman as The Novel of Man, and appeared as a limited edtion in 1964 (Harcourt, Brace & World, 59pp), "a lecture delivered in the Main Auditorium of the Brussels World Fair on October 3, 1958... published as a New Year's greeting to friends of the author & the publisher." Maigret fans are no doubt familiar with Jacques de Loustal's illustrations, which have been reported on these Forum pages a number of times... The Forum article of May 2, 2003 included links to the 2000 Figaro Magazine article on Loustal's Simenon/Maigret illustrations. In addition to two Yantchevsky Maigret covers, the covers of four Loustal Maigrets appeared in the Sept.

7, 2005 Forum , Maigret et l'inspecteur malgracieux (2002) [ mal ], Le témoinage de l'enfant de choeur (2002) [ cho ], Le client le plus obstiné du monde (2000) [ obs ], and On nu tue pas les pauvres types (2000) [ pau ]. Two other Loustal Maigrets, Ceux du Grand Café [ ceu ] and Menaces de Mort [ men ] were published in 2001, and all six were published in a single volume in 2014, Six enquetes de Maigret. From Oct. 15, 2014 - Feb. 28, 2015 there was a Loustal/Simenon Exhibition at BILIPO in Paris, attended by Jérôme, who reported to the Forum on Oct. 7, 2014 , and sent several of his photos of the exhibition on Oct. 18 .

A postage stamp designed by Loustal was issued by France (on my birthday!) in 2013, portraying 36 Quai des Orfèvres, the site of Maigret's office... ST A phenomenal author and his phenomenal character Georges Simenon was by many standards the most successful author of the 20th century, and the character he created, Inspector Jules Maigret, who made him rich and famous, ranks only after Sherlock Holmes as the world's best known fictional detective. There is nothing commonplace about the life of Georges Simenon, and he and his works have been the subject of innumerable books and articles. The Maigret stories are unlike any other detective stories  the crime and the details of unraveling it are often less central to our interest than Maigret's journey through the discovery of the cast of characters... towards an understanding of man. Simenon said he was obsessed with a search for the "naked man"  man without his cultural protective coloration, and he followed his quest as much in the Maigrets as in his "hard" novels. Although most of Simenon's work is available in English, it was originally written in French.

Simenon was born and raised in Belgium, and while Paris was "the city" for him, the home of Maigret, he was 'an international,' a world traveler who moved often and lived for many years in France, the United States, and Switzerland. Because he wrote in French, and for the most part lived in French-speaking countries, most of the books and magazine articles about him were written in French as well. Unlike his own books however, many of these have never been available in translation. Because Simenon lived to be nearly 90, and left a legacy of hundreds of books  from which more than 50 films have been made, along with hundreds of television episodes  there is much to collect, to examine, to display and discuss. This site takes Maigret as its theme, and Simenon as its sub-theme. There is much here about all aspects of Simenon and Maigret, but not so much about Simenon's other, non-Maigret books. There are full texts of many magazine and journal articles, including many translated into English here, as far as I am aware, for the first time.

In this way non-French-speaking Maigret fans can now share, in a time-compressed form, articles about Simenon and Maigret spanning more than 70 years, as well as a forum for discussion and contribution which... Enough. There's a lot here. Enjoy your visit. Come back again, and feel free to contribute to the Forum. Corrections, comments, and suggestions are welcome. Steve Trussel Georges Simenon - IMDb IMDb 17 January 2017 8:05 PM, UTC NEWS Writer Georges Simenon was born on February 13, 1903 in Liège, Wallonia, Belgium. He was a writer, known for Les enquêtes du commissaire Maigret (1967), Maigret (1991) and Monsieur Hire (1989). He was married to Denyse Ouimet and Régine "Tigy" Renchon. He died on September 4, 1989 in Lausanne, Vaud, Switzerland.

See full bio » Born: a list of 464 people created 08 May 2011 a list of 31 people created 10 Oct 2011 a list of 74 people created 25 Nov 2011 a list of 84 people created 16 Jun 2015 a list of 51 people created 23 Jun 2015 Do you have a demo reel? Add it to your IMDbPage How much of Georges Simenon's work have you seen? User Polls 1 win & 1 nomination.

See more awards » Known For 2010 En cas de malheur (TV Movie) (novel) 2009 Jusqu'à l'enfer (TV Movie) (after: d'après le roman "La mort de Belle" de) 2007 Die Katze (TV Movie) (novel "Le chat") 2007 Monsieur Joseph (TV Movie) (novel "Le petit homme d'Arkhangelsk") 2006 La Californie (short story) 2005 La tête haute (TV Movie) (novel "Le fils Cardinaud") Maigret (TV Series) (novel - 40 episodes, 1991 - 2005) (based on the novel by - 2 episodes, 1992 - 1994) (novel "Sept petites croix dans un carnet" - 1 episode, 2004) (short story "La vieille dame de Bayeux" - 1 episode, 2004) (novella "Monsieur Lundi" - 1 episode, 2004) (

novel "Maigret et les viellards" - 1 episode, 2003) (novel "Félicie est là" - 1 episode, 2002) (novel "Le charretier de la providence" - 1 episode, 2001) (novel "Maigret hésite" - 1 episode, 2000) (novel "On ne tue pas les pauvres types" - 1 episode, 2000) (short story: Jeumont, 51 minutes d'arrêt - 1 episode, 1999) (novel "Le deuil de Fonsine" - 1 episode, 1999) (novel "Témoignages d'un enfant de choeur" - 1 episode, 1997) (novel "Maigret et l'homme du banc" - 1 episode, 1993) (novel "Maigret au Picratt's" - 1 episode, 1992) 1996 Les clients d'Avrenos (TV

 Movie) (novel) 1989-1995 Cycle Simenon (TV Series) (novel - 5 episodes) 1994 L'ours en peluche (from a novel by) 1992-1993 Maigret (TV Series) (novel - 12 episodes) 1990 Ein anderer Liebhaber (TV Movie) (novel "La prison") Les enquêtes du commissaire Maigret (TV Series) (6 episodes, 1968 - 1981) (novel - 19 episodes, 1969 - 1990) (short story - 4 episodes, 1988) (novel "Le Chien jaune" - 2 episodes, 1968 - 1988) (novel "La Nuit du carrefour" - 2 episodes, 1969 - 1984) (novel "La Tête d'un homme" - 2 episodes, 1967 - 1983) (novel "Stan le tueur"

 - 1 episode, 1990) (short story "Jeumont 51 minutes d'arrêt" - 1 episode, 1989) (short story "L'auberge aux noyés" - 1 episode, 1989) (short story "L'Amoureux de madame Maigret" - 1 episode, 1989) (short story "Tempête sur la manche" - 1 episode, 1989) (short story "L'homme dans la rue" - 1 episode, 1988) (short story "La Pipe de Maigret" - 1 episode, 1988) (novel "Les Caves du Majestic" - 1 episode, 1987) (novel "Monsieur Gallet décède" - 1 episode, 1987) (novel "Maigret voyage" - 1 episode, 1987) (novel "Un échec de Maigret" - 1 episode, 1987) (novel "Le Revolver de Maigret" -

 1 episode, 1985) (novel "Maigret et le client du samedi" - 1 episode, 1985) (novel "Maigret à Vichy" - 1 episode, 1984) (novel "La Patience de Maigret" - 1 episode, 1984) (novel "Maigret se défend" - 1 episode, 1984) (novel "Un Noël de Maigret" - 1 episode, 1983) (novel "Maigret s'amuse" - 1 episode, 1983) (novel "La Colère de Maigret" - 1 episode, 1983) (novel "Maigret et le clochard" - 1 episode, 1982) (novel "Maigret et les braves gens" - 1 episode, 1982) (novel "Maigret et l'homme tout seul" - 1 episode, 1982) (novel "Le Voleur de Maigret

" - 1 episode, 1982) (novel "Maigret se trompe" - 1 episode, 1981) (novel "Une confidence de Maigret" - 1 episode, 1981) (novel "Maigret chez le coroner" - 1 episode, 1981) (novel "Maigret et les vieillards" - 1 episode, 1980) (novel "L'affaire Saint-Fiacre" - 1 episode, 1980) (novel "Maigret et la vieille dame'" - 1 episode, 1979) (novel "Le fou de Bergerac" - 1 episode, 1979) (novel "Maigret et l'affaire Nahour" - 1 episode, 1978) (novel "Maigret et le tueur" - 1 episode, 1978) (novel "Maigret et les témoins récalcitrants" - 1 episode, 1978) (novel "Maigret et le march

and de vins" - 1 episode, 1978) (novel "Maigret et monsieur Charles" - 1 episode, 1977) (novel "Au rendez-vous des Terre-Neuvas" - 1 episode, 1977) (novel "L'Amie de madame Maigret" - 1 episode, 1977) (novel "Chez les Flamands" - 1 episode, 1976) (novel "Maigret a peur" - 1 episode, 1976) (novel "Maigret hésite" - 1 episode, 1975) (novel "Le guinguette à deux sous" - 1 episode, 1975) (novel "Mon ami Maigret" - 1 episode, 1973) (novel "Le Port des brumes" - 1 episode, 1972) (novel "Maigret aux assises" - 1 episode, 1971) (novel "Maigret et le fantôme"

 - 1 episode, 1971) (novel "Les vacances de monsieur Maigret" - 1 episode, 1971) (novel "Maigret à l'école" - 1 episode, 1971) (novel "Maigret" - 1 episode, 1970) (novel "Maigret et son mort" - 1 episode, 1970) (novel "L'Ecluse n°1" - 1 episode, 1970) (novel "L'Ombre chinoise" - 1 episode, 1969) (novel "Signé Picpus" - 1 episode, 1968) (novel "Cécile est morte" - 1 episode, 1967) 1969 Yaju no fukkatsu (story "The Brothers Rico") Maigret (TV Series) (writer - 2 episodes, 1968 - 1969) (novel - 2 episodes, 1964 - 1965) (nov

el "L'Ecluse N°1" - 1 episode, 1968) (novel "Les vacances de Maigret" - 1 episode, 1968) (novel "Au rendez-vous des Terre-neuvas" - 1 episode, 1968) (novel "Pietr-Le-Letton" - 1 episode, 1967) (novel "Sept petites croix dans un carnet" - 1 episode, 1967) (novel "La patience de Maigret" - 1 episode, 1967) (novel "Maigret se défend" - 1 episode, 1967) (novel "Maigret et la jeune Morte" - 1 episode, 1967) (novel "Maigret et son Mort" - 1 episode, 1967) (novel "Maigret en meublé" - 1 episode, 1965) (novel "Maigret au Picratt's" - 1 episode, 1964) (novel

 "Maigret se trompe" - 1 episode, 1964) (novel "La première enquête de Maigret" - 1 episode, 1964) Georges Simenon and 'Maigret' by Crispin Jackson By Crispin Jackson Mention the words 'Inspector Maigret' to anyone over the age of fifty and the most likely reply will be: "Ah, yes: Rupert Davies!

Now that was a good series!" More recently, of course, British television viewers have seen Michael Gambon in the rôle, and in the years since he made his first arrest in the novel Pietr-le-Letton, serialised in France in 1930, the pipe-smoking detective has inspired a total of 55 feature films and a staggering 279 T.V. adaptations! It is perhaps for this reason that Maigret is a familiar figure to thousands of people who have never read one of the 76 titles which he inspired. Indeed, I know one fanatical reader and collector of crime novels who has not read a single one of his adventures! If Maigret is best-known in this country as a television character, then it is also true to say that he is one of the few really great fictional detectives whose fame is matched by that of his author.

Many people who have never read a 'Maigret' adventure are familiar with at least some of the myths surrounding the life of the remarkable Belgian novelist who created him, George Simenon: his sexual excesses, the amazing speed with which he completed his (admittedly short) novels, the endless moving from house to house until his reclusive final years in a small cottage in Lausanne. Some of these myths have been explored in a fascinating new biography by the British journalist, Patrick Marnham. In this article, I will be considering Simenon's life in the new light of Marnham's findings, and looking at the genesis and development of his most famous creation. AMBITION Georges Joseph Simenon was born ten minutes after twelve on the night of 12th February 1903 in the Belgian city of Liège. His early ambitions were towards the priesthood  he was an altar boy at the chapel of the local hospital  but this vocation did not survive the twin shocks of the First World War and Georges' discovery of women (the latter succeeding the other by only two years).

In fact, the war years were so brutal in occupied Liège that they effectively put an end to the ordered, bourgeois world of his childhood: he became, like everybody else in the city, a small-time black marketeer, and very nearly turned to crime of a more serious sort. In 1919, inspired by the 'Rouletabille' stories of Phantom of the Opera-author Gaston Leroux which described the adventures of a young reporter, he joined the Gazette de Liège, a right wing, Catholic newspaper. During his time with the newspaper, the young 'Georges Sim', as he called himself, interviewed Emperor Hirohito of Japan and Marshal Foch, but he made his greatest impact as a crime reporter. It's curious that in 1963 Simenon should have claimed that "when I wrote the first six or seven 'Maigrets' . . . I knew absolutely nothing about police organisation" in the light of his work for the Gazette, which involved long hours in the press box of the Liège criminal courts.

Indeed, it seems clear that Simenon was at the time already preparing himself for a career as a crime novelist: in 1920 he signed on for series of lectures on the newly-emerging subject of forensic science, which he attended into the following year. Maigret in New York was written in 1947, but wasn't published in this country until 32 years later. HUMOROUS In 1973, Simenon told the French journalist Henri-Charles Tauxe that "at fifteen, I wanted to be a novelist". If this is true, then it only took him two years to achieve his ambition: in 1920 he wrote a humorous novel called Au Pont des Arches, which a local printers agreed to publish on the condition that he managed to obtain 300 subscribers. It was issued the following year. Encouraged by the success of this book he quickly wrote another, Jehan Pinaguet, a Rabelaisian tale about an alcoholic priest which the editor of the Gazette forbade him to publish.

On 28th November 1921, Simenon was devastated by the death of his father, to whom he'd always been very close. With his father went his main tie to Liège, and almost exactly a year later, on 14th December 1922, he said farewell to Belgium and boarded a train to Paris, returning only briefly three months later to marry his first wife, Tigy. In the French capital, Simenon took a succession of jobs, and continued to write a large amount of journalism, but concentrated on fiction, selling stories to magazines with names like Frou-Frou and Paris Flirt, and writing pot-boiler novels (or 'romans alimentaires') for six different publishers under a total of 24 pseudonyms (including 'Christian Brullls' and 'George Sims')! He also sold some stories to the popular newspaper, Le Matin, which was edited by the formidable Colette. His first true novel to be published in France was Le roman d'une dactylo, which was issued by J. Ferenczi as part of their 'pulp' series, 'Le Petit Livre', in 1924.

Over the next nine years, Simenon wrote another 187 such books for the company, only stopping in 1933 when the success of 'Maigret' finally gave him the freedom to write only what he wanted. All of these 'pulps' were published under pseudonyms, the most common of which were 'Jean de Perry' and 'Georges Simm' (sic). What brought Simenon  or 'Georges Sim', as he was still known  to the attention of the public was not so much his skill as his extraordinary energy as a writer. In 1924, he wrote three novels; in 1928  his peak as a 'pulp' author  he wrote 44. So notorious did his speed of composition become, that on 14th January 1927 he signed a contract with publisher Eugène Merle undertaking to spend seven days in a glass cage outside the Moulin Rouge nightclub, during which time he would write a novel which was subsequently to be serialised in Merle's newspaper, Paris-Matinal (Simenon actually published a novel called La Cage de Verre in 1971).

As it happened, the paper folded before 'Sim' was able to fulfil the contract, but he was allowed to keep the 50,000-franc advance, and the media interest generated by the stunt brought him a considerable amount of publicity. Maigret and Monsieur Charles (1973) was the last 'Maigret,' and the last novel Simenon ever wrote. APPRENTICESHIP The turning point in Simenon's career came in the spring of 1929 when, tired of the good life in Paris, he bought a fishing cutter, the Ostrogoth, and went on a year-long tour of the waterways of Belgium and Holland. After six years as a hack-novelist  a period which he had always seen as his literary apprenticeship  he had decided that the time had come for him to direct his energies towards the 'serious' novels which it had always been his intention to write. He didn't rush into it, however.

Travelling through the canals of the Low Countries, he continued to produce the roman populaires that provided him with the bulk of his income, and, although he was not quite so prolific as he had been the previous year, he was still able to complete 34 such novels in 1929. It was in the books he wrote during this period that Simenon developed the character of his most famous creation, Inspector Jules Amédée Maigret (named, according to his wife, after one of their fellow lodgers in Paris's Place des Vosges, although there was actually an 'Inspector Maigret' stationed in Liège whilst Simenon was a child). Maigret first emerges in the figure of 'N.49', a bulky, pipe-smoking detective featured in L'amant sans nom by 'Christian Brull', published by Fayard in 1929. Later that same year, 'Commissaire Maigret' made an appearance in Train de nuit, also published by Fayard. He is much nearer to the finished character, showing some of the Inspector's calmness of manner and understanding for criminals, but unlike his successor he is stationed in Marseille rather than Paris.

Maigret next appeared in La femme rousse, written just after Train de nuit. In this book, however, he has taken a step backwards, and has to play second fiddle to his junior inspector, Torrence, a character who had made his own debut in L'inconnue, published shortly before. Fayard rejected La femme rousse, which wasn't published until 1933, and then by a different company (Tallendier). Rô1es were reversed for La maison d'inquiétude, when Commissaire Maigret once again takes centre stage, Torrence serving as his assistant. In this story, the Commissaire has already accumulated many of the props which were to become part of his character  the pipe, the heavy overcoat, the stove in his office  and is already married and living in the boulevard Richard-Lenoir in Paris. Once again, this book was rejected by Fayard, and it was published in the magazine L'uvre as a serial, beginning on 1 March 1930 (so that it actually appeared in print before Train de nuit and La femme rousse).

It is important to understand that all of these books were 'pulp' novels, superior to anything that Simenon had written before, but still undoubtedly of the same genre (although sufficiently radical to be rejected by the editors at Fayard). The first true 'Maigret'  that is, the first book to not only feature the character but to be written in Simenon's mature style  was Pietr-le-Letton, written in Paris in the spring of 1930 and serialised in Ric et Rac, a magazine published by Fayard, between July and October of that year. Simenon decided to "launch Maigret" in style, with a massive bal anthropométrique (named after the police department where suspects were stripped naked, measured and photographed), held in a Montparnasse nightclub, La Boule Blanche, on 20 February 1931. The invitations for this event were designed like a police record card, and all the guests  who came dressed as policemen or criminals  were fingerprinted at the door. The ball swallowed up Fayard's entire publicity budget for the year, but was a tremendous success.

'George Simenon' (as opposed to the better-known 'George Sim' or 'Christian Brulls') had arrived at last. The ball was organised to launch the first two 'Maigret' novels published in book form: M. Gallet, décédé (published in English under the titles The Death of Monsieur Gallet and Maigret Stonewalled) and Le pendu de St. Pholien (published in English as The Crime of Inspector Maigret and Maigret and the Hundred Gibbets). These books were a great success, and over the next three years, Simenon wrote another seventeen novels featuring the inspector. However, he had always seen him as a transitional figure, and at the end of the last of these books, simply entitled Maigret (ironically published in Britain under the title Maigret Returns), he astonished his many readers by retiring him off. By this time he had already completed a number of the roman littéraires or romans durs ('serious' novels) which it had always been his intention to write, and it is for this reason that he suddenly  although temporarily  abandoned the Inspector.

In October 1933, four months after the publication of Maigret, he left Fayard and signed a contract with Gallimard, France's most prestigious publishing company, under the terms of which he agreed to produce six novels a year. All of the one-volume Hamish Hamilton 'Maigerts,' like this one from 1973, can be bought for under £10. REPUTATION However, Simenon was not able to forget the character who had brought him a worldwide reputation. In late 1939, he began Cécile est morte (Maigret and the Spinster), which  along with its two successors Les caves du Majestic (Maigret and the Hotel Majestic) and La maison du juge (Maigret in Exile)  was published in one volume under the title Maigret revient by Gallimard in October 1942. The war years saw the publication of one more 'Maigret' omnibus, Signé Picpus (1944), containing three novels and five short stories, and one volume of stories, Les nouvelles enquêtes de Maigret (1944).

The years after the armistice where unsettled ones for Simenon. In 1945, he emigrated to America with his family, and in November of that same year met and fell in love with his second wife, Denyse Ouimet. They married in 1950. In 1955, he returned to Europe, living in a number of houses in France and Switzerland before settling in a cottage in Lausanne. Despite this rather peripatetic lifestyle, Simenon remained as prolific as ever, writing a further 49 'Maigret' novels and three volumes of short stories, as well as over seventy romans durs, before his much-publicized retirement in 1973. In July of that year, his publisher, Les Presses de la Cité (who had handled all but a handful of his books since 1947), issued the last of his novels, Maigret et Monsieur Charles, and from then until his death on 4 September 1989 he wrote nothing but a series of wildly inaccurate (and still largely untranslated) memoirs.

For the last forty years of his life he had been  by general consent  the best-selling novelist in the world, with global sales topping three million books a year. But what of Simenon's reputation in Britain, and particularly with collectors? The first point to make is that all 75 of the 'Maigret' novels have been published in English, along with all but a handful of the short stories (there have been two collections issued in this country, both published by Hamish Hamilton: Maigret's Christmas from 1976, and Maigret's Pipe from the following year, which contain nine and eighteen stories respectively). However, because of the shortness of the novels, and Maigret's enforced retirement between 1934 and 1942, the books have had a rather complicated publishing history in this country. The first nineteen 'Maigret' novels  in other words, those written between 1930 and 1934  were all published in Great Britain between 1933 and 1941, before the character made a spectacular return in France with the publication of Maigret revient in October 1942.

There were two important differences, however: they were not published in the same order as they had been in France, and unlike their continental counterparts, all the novels were published in pairs (the tenth and last volume, Maigret and M. L'abbe, included a non-'Maigret' novel, The Man from Everywhere / Le relais d'Alsace, as well as the 'Maigret' Death of a Harbour Master / Le port des brumes). Of these ten volumes, by far the most sought-after now are the first three: Introducing Inspector Maigret (1933; containing The Crime of Inspector Maigret / Le pendu de Saint-Pholien and The Death of Monsieur Gallet / M. Gailet, décédé), Inspector Maigret Investigates (1933; containing The Crossroad Murders / La nuit du carrefour and Pietr-le-Letton), and The Triumph of Inspector Maigret (1934; containing The Crime at Lock 14 / Le Charretier de 'la Providence' and The Shadow in the Courtyard / L'ombre chinoise), all published by Hurst & Blackett.

These attractive volumes  each one bound in dark red cloth with black lettering, and featuring a pictorial dustjacket  are by far the scarcest and most expensive of all the 'Maigret' books in English, with Very Good copies of the first selling for up to £150, and similar copies of the other two for as much as £125. There was then a gap of over five years, before Maigret was taken up by Routledge, who between September 1939 and September 1941 published all the remaining novels in seven, two-novel volumes.

Of these, the first four  The Patience of Maigret (1939; containing A Battle of Nerves / La tête d'un homme and A Face for a Clue / Le chien jaune), Maigret Travels South (1940; containing Liberty Bar / 'Liberty bar' and The Madman of Bergerac / Le fou de Bergerac), Maigret Abroad (1940; containing A Crime in Holland / Un crime en Hollande and At the Gai-Moulin / La danseuse du Gai-Moulin) and Maigret to the Rescue (1940; containing The Flemish Shop / Chez les Flamands and The Guinguette by the Seine / La guinguette à deux sous)  are the most collected, as they feature pictorial dustjackets by E. McKnight-Kauffer, the brilliant designer / artist famous for his classic posters for London Transport and Shell.

Routledge (or Routledge and Kegan Paul as they were known by then) published only two of the 'new' 'Maigrets'  A Summer Holiday / Les vacances de Maigret and To Any Lengths / Signé Pricpus in Maigret on Holiday (1950)  before Simenon signed a contract with Hamish Hamilton in 1951 which gave them exclusive rights to publish all of his books in the United Kingdom. They issued one two-novel 'Maigret'  Maigret Right and Wrong (1954; containing Maigret in Montmartre / Maigret au 'Picratt's' and Maigret's Mistake / Maigret se trompe)  thereafter publishing all his novels in one-volume editions. The 'Maigret' titles appeared at the rate of two-a-year  one in spring, one in autumn  from 1955 to 1980, ending with Maigret and the Coroner, first published in France 31 years earlier under the title Maigret chez le coroner.

This delay was by no means unusual: by the time Hamish Hamilton published their first 'Maigret' volume in November 1954, they already had a backlog of 25 books to catch up on. This they did gradually, not wanting to flood the market with books by Simenon, who up until 1972 produced at least two new novels a year. As a result, the order in which the 'Maigret' books were published in Britain often bears little relation to the order in which they were written and issued in France. Apart from the three Hurst & Blackett volumes, most of the 'Maigret' novels can be picked up quite cheaply. None of the single-volume Hamish Hamilton titles sells for more than £10 today, whilst the eight two-novel editions issued by Routledge between 1939 and 1941 are much cheaper than their Hurst & Blackett predecessors, selling for between £30 and £40.

On top of the first editions of these books, there are also one Octopus and six Hamish Hamilton omnibus editions, as well as paperbacks from Ace, Arrow, Digit, Four Square, Pan, Panther, Peacock, Toucan, WDL and, of course, Penguin (including fourteen omnibuses). There are also hardback reprints by White Lion (twelve novels) and Severn House (two novels). As well as the first editions, there are a number of reprints to be collected, like this one from 1980. LIST Anyone who wants a complete list of French, British and American editions, including British and American paperbacks, need look no further than Peter Foord's Georges Simenon: A Bibliography, published in 1988 as number three in the Dragonby bibliography series in a limited edition of 300 copies. A few copies of this 84-page, A5 booklet are still available at £10.40 (including postage) C.W.O. from: Richard Williams, The Dragonby Press, 15 High Street, Dragonby, Scunthorpe, South Humberside, DN15 0BE.

Patrick Marnham's new biography, The Man Who Wasn't Maigret: A Portrait of Georges Simenon (Bloomsbury, £17.99) can be highly recommended to those who want a thorough but readable account of the author's extraordinary life. Marnham doesn't make too much of Simenon's well-known sexual excesses, concentrating instead on his difficult childhood in war-torn Belgium, the memory of which took him over fifty years and almost two hundred novels to exorcise. For collectors, there is a selected (but very thorough) bibliography, which includes all the novels, his autobiographical writings and juvenilia, and a comprehensive list of secondary sources. The book is very well produced, and contains over forty photographs. Let the last word on Simenon go to Ford Madox Ford. In his massive study, The March of Literature, he wrote of one of the early 'Maigret' books that: "It is Dostoevsky: ... Dostoevsky, corsé, constructed, economized and filled with the poetry of pity." Solemn words perhaps, but appropriate nevertheless, and equally applicable to any one of Simenon's 193 novels.

In this article I have concentrated only on those that feature the kindly Inspector Maigret: there are over a hundred more, but, those will have to be dealt with in another feature! PRICE GUIDE TO THE 'MAIGRET' BOOKS OF GEORGES SIMENON A guide to current values of first editions in Very Good condition with dustjackets.

NOVELS INTRODUCING INSPECTOR MAIGRET (includes 'The Crime of Inspector Maigret' and 'The Death of Monsieur Gallet') (Hurst & Blackett, 1933) £125-£l50 INSPECTOR MAIGRET INVESTIGATES (includes 'The Strange Case of Peter the Lett' and 'The Crossroad Murders') (Hurst & Blackett, 1933) £100-£l25 THE TRIUMPH OF INSPECTOR MAIGRET (includes 'The Crime at Lock 14' and 'The Shadow on the Courtyard') (Hurst & Blackett, 1934) £100-£l25 THE PATIENCE OF MAIGRET (includes 'A Battle of Nerves' and 'A Face for a Clue') (Routledge, 1939) £30-£40 Georges Simenon - Biography - IMDb Georges Simenon Jump to: Overview (2) | Mini Bio (1) | Spouse (2) | Trivia (6) | Personal Quotes (1) Overview (2) 4 September 

1989 , Lausanne, Vaud, Switzerland Mini Bio (1) Georges Simenon was born on February 13, 1903 in Liège, Wallonia, Belgium.

He was a writer, known for Les enquêtes du commissaire Maigret (1967), Maigret (1991) and Monsieur Hire (1989). He was married to Denyse Ouimet and Régine "Tigy" Renchon. He died on September 4, 1989 in Lausanne, Vaud, Switzerland. Spouse (2) Georges Simenon (Creator) - TV Tropes Georges Simenon You need to login to do this. Get Known if you don't have an account Share YMMV Georges Simenon, born Georges Joseph Christian Sim (1903-1989) was a highly prolific Belgian-French writer of detective and psychological novels, best known as the creator of Inspector Maigret. His total literary output of some 425 books has been translated into 50 languages and sold over 700 million copies worldwide. His style is variously called "rigorously simplistic" and "having a Gallic dryness".

He wrote over 190 pulp fiction works under 17 different pseudonyms in the 1920's and 30's before putting his own name to Pietr-le-Letton (1931; The Case of Peter the Lettnote An old term for 'Latvian' that has now fallen out of use; the current English title is now Peter the Latvian), which marked the debut of Inspector Jules Maigret. The Parisian police inspector is Simenon's most famous character. The unflappable bourgeois Maigret starred in 81 novels and a number of short stories, calmly smoking his pipe and using his knowledge of psychology and patient routine investigation to understand the motives of the people he investigated to solve his cases. Maigret has been adapted for radio, film and television numerous times in France, Britain and Japan, including a British ITV series in the early 1990's starring Michael Gambon and another in 2016 starring Rowan Atkinson .

This author and his work provide examples of: I Have Many Names : He wrote under several pseudonyms: Georges Sim, Christian Brulls, Gom Gut, Georges d'Isly, Jean du Perry, Jean Dorsage, Jacques Dorsonne, Luc Dorsan, Georges Martin, Georges en Gaston Vialis. Mistaken Nationality : He is often though to be French, but was Belgian, even the most widely read Belgian author of all time. Psychological Thriller : Simenon had a keen interest in human psychology and often made it a large part of his plots to seek behind characters' motivations. His non-fiction work also deals with this subject. Real Life Writes the Plot : In 1922 a man hung himself at the door handle of a church. Simenon had met the man the night before and brought the drunk person back to his home. It would inspire him to write "Le pendu de Saint-Pholien". Smoking Is Cool : Simenon was a pipe smoker himself and therefore he let his character Maigret smoke one too.

References in popular culture: De Kiekeboes : In De Doedelzak van Mac Reel ("The Bagpipes of Mac Rel") a Scottish detective is hired named McGret, wearing the same grey raincoat and smoking a similar pipe like Maigret. Labyrinths of Echo : Kofa Yokh's appearance is compared to Inspector Maigret, which becomes a plot point late in the second volume, where Max almost lets himself be convinced that all of them were just figments of his imagination , based on his favorite movies—a possible instance of the author admitting to lazy writing, as this technique is never used again throughout rest of the series. :: Indexes :: The Maigret Machine The Maigret Machine Illustrated. 447 pp. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. $32.50. n the latter years of Georges Simenon's prolific writing life, when he had already published close to 400 novels, Alfred Hitchcock was said to have telephoned, only to be told by Simenon's secretary that he couldn't be disturbed because he had just begun a new novel.

Hitchcock, knowing that Simenon was capable of writing one novel -- or two or three -- every month, replied, ''That's all right, I'll wait.'' Charges of facile productivity dogged and irritated Simenon from the start of his career as a newspaper reporter in 1919, when he was one month shy of his 16th birthday. At the youthful age of 29, he was already defending the ease with which he churned out fiction. ''I haven't written that much,'' he insisted. ''I've only published 277 books.'' He said his ambition was ''to produce semiliterary novels as a step toward rising to the class of a Jack London, or, who knows?, maybe one day a Conrad.'' At his death in 1989 at 86, Simenon's writings had been translated into approximately 50 languages and sold hundreds of millions of copies worldwide; many, including some featuring his most famous character, Inspector Maigret, had been turned into money-making films. Simenon was a man of prodigious appetites.

Born into a poor family in Liege, Belgium, he learned to dress as an English country gentleman, collected impressive homes, kept horses and enjoyed fine wines and food. He frequented thousands of prostitutes and boasted about his priapic prowess to his equally boastful friend, the novelist Henry Miller. Simenon fathered four children, whom he adored, but he was always a distant presence in their lives. Intent on amassing enough money to support a lavish life style, he lusted for wealth and fame and prided himself on being capable of writing anything at all for money. ''With few exceptions, he wrote his novels the way you make waffles: with a mold,'' Pierre Assouline writes in his fine biography, which throughout casts a coolly impartial eye upon its ignoble subject. Assouline, the biographer of the publisher Gaston Gallimard and an editor of the French literary magazine Lire, is also the author of ''L'Epuration des Intellectuels,'' a respected study of French writers and collaboration during the Nazi occupation of France.

He is the ideal biographer for the nasty, prickly, opportunistic and misogynistic Simenon, and his book is a model of how to write honestly, objectively and dispassionately about such a man. First, Simenon granted Assouline the biographer's ideal working situation: free access to his personal and professional archives, and permission to gather testimonies from all the people who figured in his life. Simenon agreed not to interfere when the manuscript was published, saying, ''That way you'll be free and so will I.'' After his death, Simenon's heirs and publishers gave Assouline complete access to their mammoth archives; he has fully rewarded everyone's trust by using these materials candidly yet judiciously.

Assouline speaks of the Simenon paradox, of wanting to be known as a great writer but having instead a life defined by ''excess'' and fame based on ''notoriety.'' His obituaries never spoke of quality, only of ''books sold, records set and stunts performed.'' ''Simenon often claimed to be devoid of imagination, and sometimes it is a mistake not to take him at his word,'' is Assouline's astringent description of his subject's technique. He has obviously immersed himself in everything Simenon wrote, recalls it all with easy grace and has the ability to incorporate it smoothly into Simenon's life as the story progresses. He argues persuasively that any attempt to separate the man from the work would be ''as absurd as trying to divide form from content,'' for ''Simenon's entire experience reappeared in his work.'' Belgium was where young Georges Sim (one of his first pseudonyms), ''already a phenomenon'' at 16, learned how to make himself indispensable to his editors as he stalked the offices of The Gazette de Liege, prowled the corridors of police stations and courthouses, and frequented nightclubs and prostitutes in equal part.

At 17 he had his own column. Just before he turned 18 he published his first novel and set off for France. In Paris, he told his friend the painter Jean Helion, ''Success hinges on how you do things.'' His began shortly after he met Colette, whom he credited with teaching him how to write. ''Still too literary. No literature!'' Colette scrawled on the stories she rejected for Le Matin, the newspaper owned by Henri de Jouvenal, then her husband. So young Georges set about learning how to ''mix the plaster'' as he churned out plots for several stories every day in what became a long and mutually beneficial collaboration. Throughout his life, Simenon said that everything he wrote kept Colette in mind. At 20, he returned to Liege long enough to marry Regine (Tigy) Renchon, ''an intellectual raised in a family of atheists,'' who swore ''only by Zola.'' Asked why he married so young, despite boasts of the hundreds of prostitutes he needed to satisfy his sexual appetites, not to mention affairs with a number of famous women (these later included Josephine Baker), Simenon conjured up two stories.

For the public, he created an idyllic image of two people sitting together of an evening; privately, he told his mother that he married ''out of necessity. It was impossible for me to do otherwise without working myself to death.'' And besides, housekeepers in Paris were outrageously expensive. The household was organized so that Tigy insulated Simenon from the buffets of ordinary life while working full time as his secretary, typist and general factotum. As ''the Simenon organization'' expanded, Tigy was soon joined by Henriette Liberge, called Boule. Originally hired for a year, she spent the rest of her life working for ''my pretty little gentleman,'' both in his bed and in his office. Assouline calls her the most important witness to every stage of Simenon's life and takes care to explain how their relationship transcended the usual extramarital affair. Soon Boule took charge of the kitchen and household; first one, then several secretaries were hired to type away as Simenon wrote or dictated; and Tigy oversaw both aspects of his life. ''The train was on its way,'' Assouline comments dryly.

Their stay in France lasted through World War II, when Simenon, exhibiting the careless anti-Semitism so deeply ingrained in much of European society, prospered by becoming, Assouline writes, ''not a man of commitment, but an opportunist.'' He submitted his novels to German censors, and his films were made in active collaboration with Vichy officials. He became enormously wealthy. When the war ended and his behavior came under scrutiny, Simenon suddenly felt the urge to move his entourage to the United States. In New York he met Denyse Ouimet, a young French Canadian from a good Ottawa family. He was 42, she 25, and they began an intensely physical affair. She became his mistress the day they met and soon was his secretary and the dictator of his household. Simenon divorced Tigy but refused to support her and their son unless she participated in his peripatetic life by always living near him and Denyse, albeit in far more humble circumstances. People in Lakeville, Conn., where they eventually settled, were appalled.

Denyse became the mother of two sons and of Simenon's only daughter, Marie-Jo, a troubled child who developed an obsessive relationship with her father. If there is a fault in Assouline's otherwise impeccable reportage, it is his seeming discomfort at having to write about her sorry end -- she committed suicide at the age of 25. As Simenon aged, Assouline writes: ''His self-intoxication grew to the point where he sincerely believed everything he said and wrote about himself. . . . Author and reader alike were lost in a hybrid form of autobiographical fiction.'' This was especially true of the last years in Switzerland, when Simenon worked assiduously to promote an image of himself as an elder statesman of letters. Assouline's knowledge of French history, both literary and political, is wide and deep, and he incorporates many of its facts and facets into the texture of Simenon's life. Unlike so many biographers who inject laundry lists of famous names or important historical events into a subject's life even when they have no bearing at all, Assouline includes impeccably chosen historical detail, while never veering more than several sentences away from its direct relation to Simenon.

Scholars might be dismayed by Jon Rothschild's pedestrian translation from the French, but they will be delighted with Assouline's portrayal of French publishing history and his extensive and exhaustive lists of sources, which include nearly everything by and about Simenon, including a complete filmography. Simenon buffs will find much to peruse with pleasure in what will surely be the definitive biography for many years to come. Deirdre Bair is writing a biography of Carl Gustav Jung. More on Georges Simenon "I'm not an intelligent man and I don't have an analytical mind," Simenon said in an interview. "My books are therefore written by intuition alone." From The New York Times Magazine: Simenon's Last Case (1984) In an interview, Georges Simenon said "Between novels, I have three or four weeks of exuberant life, and then, little by little, I have a feeling of emptiness. That's why I have had 33 homes in my life. Each time, it's the same. One day, I look around and I say, 'Why am I here?' And I don't know the answer.

I am a stranger." "Musing on the future, [Simenon] once said: 'I don't fear death, but I fear causing trouble by my death to those who survive me. I would like to die as discreetly as possible.'" REVIEWS: The Inspector Maigret Mysteries , an Index of Maigret books reviewed in The New York Times from 1940 to 1989. 1940s "It is interesting that an observant man like Mr. Simenon can visit Africa and emerge knowing next to nothing about Africans." 1980s " The Mystery of Georges Simenon: A Biography ," by Fenton Bresler and " The Lodger " by Georges Simenon (1983) "Simenon said once that only the tramp who owns nothing and has no commitments can be truly free and that it was such freedom he desired. Words are easy for a millionaire, of course, but the longing was genuine and provides the motive behind many of the finest stories. " " Intimate Memoirs " (1984) Simenon's biography "is an 815-page barrage against discussion of his work.

He gives us endless filler ('I went in for golf, canoeing, volleyball'), leads us around his private purgatories (his appalling second marriage, the tragedy of Marie-Jo) and introduces us to the moneyed and celebrated." Georges Simenon | Biography, Books and Facts [Cite This] Georges Simenon Georges Joseph Christian Simenon was a prominent twentieth century Belgian-born French author. He wrote prolifically and produced nearly 200 novels and other fiction works. The fictional French detective Jules Maigret is one of his best known creations. Born on February 13, 1903, in Liège, Belgium, Simenon was raised by his parents Désiré Simenon and Henriette. Although he was born on 13th of February, his date of birth was registered as 12th by his aunt, due to superstitious significance of the date. He recounted story of his birth in the preface of one of his novels, Pedigree. His father was an accounting officer in an insurance company. At the young age of three, Simenon was enrolled at the Saint-Julienne nursery school where he quickly learned to read.

Two years later he attended Institut Saint-André and at the advent of First World War he began studying at the Collège Saint-Louis. He left his studies on the pretext of his father’s heart condition. Before beginning his writing career, Simenon worked as a baker, a bookseller and did a number of odd jobs. In 1919, he began writing for a local newspaper, Gazette de Liège where he covered mundane stories. While working as a news reporter he became acquainted with the sordid details of what goes on in the city including politics, crime, police investigations and crime-solving techniques. Publishing over 150 articles under the pseudonym G. Sim, he became a skilled editor. Moreover, he penned multitude of humorous pieces under the pen name Monsieur Le Coq. Shortly, Simenon invested his creative energy in writing his debut novel. In 1921, he published his first novel, Au Pont des Arches, under the same nom de plume, as he used for his articles. During his time at Gazette he ran into a circle of painters, dilettantes, writers known as La Caque, with whom he experimented with drugs and drinking, besides discussing art and philosophy.

Several of the La Caque members were later featured in his novel, Le Pendu de Saint-Pholien (1931). He married a young artist from Gazette, Règine Renchon but ended up getting divorced and having several love affairs. In 1922, Simenon moved to Paris, where he published numerous short stories and novels under different pseudonyms. His creativity reached its zenith during 1920’s and 30’s, when he penned dozens of pulp fictions. In 1930, he created one of the most famous characters of all time, Commissaire Maigret. Maigret first appeared in a short fiction, titled Detective. By 1934, the author had published over 19 detective Maigret novels after which he took an eight-year break from writing as he extensively traveled around the globe. Additionally, Simenon’s role during the Second World War was deemed suspicious. Some scholars are of the view that he secretly collaborated with the Germans, while others opposed the view labeling him more of an apolitical opportunist rather than a conspirer.

The war years influenced Simenon’s writing as he authored some of his major works during this time period which include Le Cercle des Mahé, Le Testament Donadieu and Le Voyageur de la Toussaint. Subsequently, he moved to United States and Canada and returned to Europe after a decade. Inspired by his stay at Nogales, Arizona he wrote, The Bottom of the Bottle. Moreover, he penned numerous novels of psychological and autobiographical nature. Some of the titles include The Strangers in the House (1940), Le fils (1957), Pedigree (1948) and Mémoires intimes (1981). George Simenon is credited for 171 film adaptations based on his works. He died of natural causes on 4th of September, 1989. Buy Books by Georges Simenon

Question: George Simenon created Maigret - what nationality was he?
Answer: Belgian