Arsène Lupin versus Herlock Sholmes

After Leblanc cheekily used Sherlock Holmes in a 1906 Lupin story, Arthur Conan Doyle’s representatives complained, so Leblanc lightly redacted the name to Herlock Sholmes and his sidekick Watson became Wilson. Then he wrote two full novellas pitting the French gentleman thief against the British detective. The Blonde Lady involves a diamond heist and a cryptic clue chain. The Jewish Lamp revolves around a stolen lamp and a missing key.

The whole exercise is winking and playful. Sholmes is competent and methodical. Lupin is theatrical and improvisational. They check into the same hotels, read each other’s mail, and one-up each other for two hundred pages. There is no real moral lesson here. Leblanc clearly enjoyed himself, and the book is best read in that spirit: a national-pride literary prank that somehow turned into a small classic of its own. If you want pure Lupin pleasure with a competent foil, start here.