Les loups de Paris | Le Club des Morts [Wolves of Paris - The Club of the Dead]

by Jules Lermina

A serialized novel set in a louche ring of adventurers searching for the "Treasure of the Khmers".

Les Loups De Paris Lermina Cover

Type: e-book

Publisher: Paris, E. Dentu Ed., Librairie de la Société des Gens de Lettres

Edition: digital version

Published: 1876

Author: Jules Lermina

Pages: 580

Language : French

ADB Library Catalog ID: eLIT-LER1-2

This gigantic novel met a great popular success at the time of its publication in 1876, and was swiftly translated in various languages, including Russian.

A colorful set of characters, mostly ruined French aristocrats, bohemian idlers and ladies of the night, are obsessing about finding the mythical treasure of the Khmers”. 

After many turns and twists, they manage to decipher a Khmer inscription: TROISIÈME ORIENTYACKSA COLOSSENAGA DOIGT DE PRÉA PUTDEUX LISDOIGT DU ROIOMBRE CROISÉE, LA EST LE TRÉSOR DES KHMERSANGKOR WAT”. [“THIRD ORIENT.. YACKSA GIANTNAGA FINGER OF PREA PUTTWO LILIESFINGER OF THE KINGCROSSED SHADOW, THERE IS THE TREASURE OF THE KHMERS AT ANGKOR WAT”].

In order to get that riddle solved, you’ll need to read the 500-odd-page volume of the sequel, Le Roi du Mal, or check our notice, which will give you the clue.

Tags: Khmer Kings & Queens, Khmer Empire, fiction, French literature, treasure, gold, jewels, crown jewels, looted art, restitution, returned art

About the Author

Jules Lermina

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.