author
Marcel Allain
1885–1969
Best known as the co-creator of the wildly influential Fantômas novels, this French writer helped shape modern crime fiction with stories full of menace, disguise, and speed. After his collaborator Pierre Souvestre died, he kept the series alive on his own and went on to write hundreds of works.
6 Audiobooks
A Royal Prisoner
by Pierre Souvestre, Marcel Allain
A Nest of Spies
by Pierre Souvestre, Marcel Allain
Messengers of Evil Being a Further Account of the Lures and Devices of Fantômas
by Pierre Souvestre, Marcel Allain
The Exploits of Juve Being the Second of the Series of the "Fantômas" Detective Tales
by Pierre Souvestre, Marcel Allain
The long arm of Fantômas
by Pierre Souvestre, Marcel Allain
Fantômas
by Pierre Souvestre, Marcel Allain
About the author
Born in Paris on September 15, 1885, Marcel Allain became a French novelist and journalist whose name is most closely tied to Fantômas, the master criminal he created with Pierre Souvestre in 1911. The character quickly became a sensation and remains one of the most memorable figures in popular French crime fiction.
Allain first worked closely with Souvestre, and together they produced the early Fantômas novels at an astonishing pace. When Souvestre died in 1914, Allain continued the saga alone, expanding the series and helping secure its long afterlife in print, film, and popular culture.
He died on August 25, 1969. Although he wrote far more than the books most readers know him for, his lasting reputation rests on the eerie energy and pulp imagination of Fantômas, a creation that influenced generations of thriller and mystery storytelling.