Paul Féval

Born in Rennes in Brittany, Paul Féval was a French novelist and dramatist whose career took off in the age of the feuilleton, when novels appeared in installments in newspapers. His fiction reached a wide audience, and he became one of the most popular popular-story writers of his time.

He wrote prolifically across adventure, historical fiction, and early crime fiction. Among his best-known works are Le Loup blanc and Le Bossu, the latter remaining his most famous book and the source of the well-known Lagardère line that has echoed through French popular culture.

Much of his work drew on the history and atmosphere of his native Brittany, giving his stories a vivid local color beneath all the duels, disguises, secrets, and reversals. Although only part of his large body of work is widely read now, he is still remembered as an important figure in popular 19th-century French fiction.