An urban myth

fantômas and the surrealists

Robert Vilain

pp. 170-187

in: Warren Chernaik, Martin Swales, Robert Vilain (eds), The art of detective fiction, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2000

Abstract

Fantômas is the hero, anti-hero, or just possibly virtual hero of 32 romans feuilletons by Pierre Souvestre and Marcel Allain written between February 1911 and September 1913.¹ After Souvestre's death from Spanish influenza in February 1914, Allain wrote further stories, in serial and cartoon form, which appeared between 1926 and 1963. According to the terms of the original contract, signed on 29 April 1910 with the publisher Arthème Fayard, Souvestre was to write a book a month for a fee of 2000 francs per volume, with an additional royalty of three centimes for each copy over 50000 and three per cent of the income from any new editions.² Allain, ten years younger, had met Souvestre when he joined the staff of Souvestre's automotive magazine Le Poids-Lourd in 1907; they both also worked for the sporting daily L"Auto and the entertainment magazine Comœdia. Allain was subcontracted to Souvestre for 500 francs per manuscript and half the royalties. Soon they were selling 600000 copies a month at 65 centimes a copy. The two would sit down together for three days and work out the plot and structure; then they drew lots to see who was to write each chapter. Both dictated their sections into a dictaphone. The chapters beginning néanmoins were by Souvestre, those with toutefois in the first sentence were by Allain — although the adverbs were usually cut out at the typing stage. It usually took a week to dictate and type up and then two days to proofread.³