Jules Lermina

Mystery novelist, libertarian pamphleteer, co-founder of the famous French periodical ​“La Revue Universelle”, Jules Lermina (27 Mar 1839, Paris — 23 June 1915, Paris) wrote many Edgar Allan Poe-inspired novels, including Les Loups de Paris (Parisian Wolves, 1876, under the pseudonym of William Cobb), in which a bunch of aristocrats and a ​‘courtisane’ seek after the mythical ​“Treasure of the Khmers”.

A prolific writer, Lermina also composed a Dictionary of French ​‘argot’ (slang), and was the editor-in-chief of several left-wing newspapers, being repeatedly arrested for his libertarian positions. His fiction works are replete with decadent symbolism, ​‘passionate magic’, esoteric erotism (for instance in ​‘La Deux fois morte’), and a fascination-repulsion for the Far East.