Fantômas et le collier de l’esclave

Abstract

This article traces the genesis and production conditions of Fantômas (1911–1913), a series of novels co-authored by Pierre Souvestre and Marcel Allain. It examines what it meant to “be an author” during the golden age of French popular fiction. A work written to order and produced by four hands, Fantômas epitomizes the tension between artistic creation and industrial logic. Drawing on unpublished archival materials, this study highlights the unequal collaboration between the two writers, their working methods, and the way in which the figure of the “Genius of Crime” gradually detached itself from its material conditions of emergence to acquire, over time, its own symbolic and aesthetic legitimacy.