Tourists, and even Parisians today, may walk down the Rue Paul Féval in the eighteenth arrondissement without knowing anything about the most popular feuilletoniste of the mid to late nineteenth century. Paul Henri Corentin Féval (1816/1817-1887) worked briefly as a lawyer, banker, and editor, but entered publishing in 1842. His plots were first set in his native Brittany, based on Breton folktales. His first full-length novel published in serial form was Les Chevaliers du firmament (1843). This novel and the next, Le Loup blanc (1843), began a series of novels on his best known topic: a band of like-minded men forced to work undercover to fight corruption and right wrongs. (A similar plot continued in the television series “Leverage” starring Timothy Hutton.) Plots of his first novels centered around a dispossessed hero who takes over an organization of criminals in order to displace his usurper and claim his birthright, a narrative reminiscent of Robin Hood.

Féval invented elaborate, fanciful conspiracy plots, often based on real organizations, but offering more variation than those of competitors such as Eugène Sue and Alexandre Dumas. But, despite the competition, Féval’s novels were so popular that they sometimes doubled previous circulation of their newspapers. Pressure from competition disappeared when his rivals were exiled by Napoleon III, leaving him the best know serial writer of the period. Féval finally wove conspiracy plots into fourteen volumes, his best known work, Les Habits noirs. A character in one of these novels anticipates Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Professor Moriarty and Mario Puzo’s Godfather.

Printed in Paris by Berlats
(c. 1862), this lithographic print by Étienne Carjat depicts Paul Henry Corentin Féval, who is also known as “Féval père” (1816-1887).

Féval began publishing action-adventure novels with La Louve (1855) and L’Homme de fer (1856). His next work went far afield, setting Les Couteaux d’or partly in California and introducing a Pawnee Indian to Paris, where he begins scalping the citizens. With Le Bossu (1857) the French feuilletoniste returned to featuring a character with a dual personality, a nobleman who masquerades as a hunchback. It also includes a plot to rescue Napoleon from Saint Helena.

Féval published three vampire tales, first with La Vampire (1865), sometimes said to have been written in 1856, preceding Bram Stoker’s Dracula. The next two vampire novels appeared much later: La Ville Vampire (I867) and Le Chevalier ténèbre (1875). The popularity of vampire tales exists to the present day. The vampire Mina Harker from Dracula continues her vampire career in the 2003 television series The League of Extraordinary Gentleman.

Féval’s work spans four genres, the local color stories of Brittany, the action/adventure novel competing with Sue and Dumas, the vampire novel, and the crime thriller. His work in the last of these made possible the creation of the “roman judiciaire” from Émile Gaboriau, his assistant and follower.