A Heart Full of Love and Cloaks and Swords : Paul Feval fils – “Coeur D’Amour”

Paul Feval is the classic creator of "Le Bossu" ("The Hunchback" that does not hail from Notre Dame) and other swashbucklers like  "The White Wolf" and "Captain Phantom"; arguably the originator of modern detective fiction with "Jean Diable" and "The Mysteries of London"; the masterful storyteller behind the multi-volume crime saga of "Les Habits Noirs"; …

Noble Efforts : Paul Mahalin – “The Queen of Beggars” and the “Red Duke”

Even before Alexandre Dumas died in 1870, the titan's shadow provided shelter to a variety of devout aficionados of the historical romance in the Dumasian mold. Today, we would call them fan-fiction writers, but in a time of looser copyright laws, the line between Dumas, his collaborators, and his imitators wasn't always clear. In 1854, for …

The Time of the Cathedrals : Victor Hugo, “Notre-Dame de Paris”

Esmeralda shouldn't be so spectacularly attractive. After all, Victor Hugo tells us how pretty she is again and again, which is enough to make us suspicious. It's just like hearing a car dealer go on about some beaut he seems desperate to get rid of, and we know that (Disney adaptations be-damned) Victor Hugo definitely …