Les Habits Noirs

Les Habits Noirs is a book series written over a thirty-year period, comprising eleven novels, created by Paul Féval, père, a 19th-century French writer.

By its methods, themes and characters, Les Habits Noirs is the precursor of today’s conspiracy and organized crime fiction. Féval’s heroes, from Gregory Temple, the first “detective” in modern detective fiction, to Remy d’Arx, the investigative magistrate, are also the first modern characters of their kind.

In 1862, Féval founded the magazine Jean Diable, named after his eponymous Habits Noirs novel, and Émile Gaboriau, future creator of the police detective Monsieur Lecoq, a hero seemingly unrelated to the villainous Lecoq of the Habits Noirs, was his assistant.