Patrick Ferté’s study examines Maurice Leblanc’s Arsène Lupin as more than a popular fictional thief. Focusing on the idea of the “supérieur inconnu,” the book treats Lupin as a literary puzzle shaped by disguise, secrecy, and coded meaning. The work explores how Leblanc’s gentleman-thief creation operates within a wider pattern of allusions, hidden structures, and narrative games, inviting readers to look beyond the surface adventures of the stories. It also considers the character’s enduring ambiguity: Lupin is both a public celebrity and an elusive mastermind, a criminal who follows his own code and a figure whose identity resists easy definition. Aimed at readers interested in French popular literature, detective fiction, and interpretive keys to Leblanc’s writing, this study presents Lupin as a central device through which Leblanc’s imagination, craft, and use of coded storytelling can be better understood.

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