The Woman of Mystery : Read & Co. Classics : 9781473325289 : 1473325285 : 13 Feb 2015 : This early work by Maurice Leblanc was originally published in 1916 and we are now republishing it with a brand new introductory biography. Set in 1914, "The Woman of Mystery" paints an insightful picture of WWI in France, twined together with the mystery surrounding the murder of main character Paul's father. Maurice Marie Émile Leblanc was born on 11th November 1864 in Rouen, Normandy, France. He was a novelist and writer of short stories, known primarily as the creator of the fictional gentleman thief and detective, Arsène Lupin. From the start, Leblanc wrote both short crime stories and longer novels - and his lengthier tomes, heavily influenced by writers such as Flaubert and Maupassant, were critically admired, but met with little commercial success. Leblanc was largely considered little more than a writer of short stories for various French periodicals when the first Arsène Lupin story appear