The creator of Arsène Lupin, Maurice Leblanc, was born in Rouen in 1864. At the request of a Paris magazine, Je Sais Tout, he began a series of stories featuring the character Lupin, a ‘gentleman thief ’, which appeared in this publication, starting in 1907. The blueprint for this new magazine was England’s Strand Magazine in which Conan Doyle had first introduced his character Sherlock Holmes.