"Absurd and magnificant lyricism." —Jean Cocteau
"The modern Aeneid." —Blaise Cendrars
"A utopia of uninterrupted sensationalism. The book is not a puzzle but an intoxicant." —Geoffrey O'Brien
"Unable to resist the allure of evil, I spent the rest of the day with Fantômas..." —Umberto Eco
"It kept me up and hour and a half after my appointed bedtime." —Punch
For more on the world of the Fantômas novels and films go to Who is Fantômas?
Over the past year, many independent publishers have been reissuing Fantômas imprints, as well as producing entirely new works. The most important of these is Black Coat Press. Black Coat extended the Fantômas series in English with The Daughter of Fantômas, translated and introduced by Mark Steele. Nick Carter versus Fantômas and the forthcoming Sherlock Holmes versus Fantômas are early twentieth-century play scripts that have been reworked to pit these renowned detectives against the Genius of Crime. The most innovative Black Coat publication of recent years is Fantômas in America by David White, inspired by Edward Sedgwick's lost silent Fantômas film serial from 1920.
Other small and on-demand publishers have been reissuing early Fantômas novels as well. The most avant-garde of these is the Solar Research Archive, which has reworked the translation of the third novel, with an introduction by Candice Black, as Fantômas: The Corpse Who Kills. Of course, Souvestre and Allain's original Fantômas novel is available from both Dover Books, with an introduction by Robin Walz, and Penguin Classics, with an introduction by John Ashbury. The first novel in Marcel Allain's solo continuation of the Fantômas series from the 1920s, The Lord of Terror, has been reissued by Lulu Books. On-demand publications of the first five novels may be found through amazon.com.
If you have a Region 2 DVD player, Louis Feuillade's brilliant Fantômas silent film serial is available through Artificial Eye Films. The double DVD set includes all five Feuillade films made for Gaumont Studios, with English subtitles in addition to the French intertitles.
Another delight, M. Lapin has provided us with The Ballad of Fantômas, an English translation of Robert Desnos's La complainte de Fantômas.
For more quick reference information to Fantômas in English, see the Wikipedia entry.
Site last updated January 2009
The Fantômas Website has received the following awards for excellence:
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