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Le Commissaire Maigret
Police Judiciaire
36 Quai des Orfèvres
Paris...

The Maigret Forum This is not a static website. It changes almost daily. The Maigret "Forum," an open bulletin board for notices, opinions, information and discussion related to Maigret and Simenon, has become the most active feature of this site. It's where new books, websites, articles and features are first announced and displayed, and includes an indexed archive of the entire past Forum... back to 1997!

Click here for the current Forum. Here's a recent sample - Maigret of the Month: Vente à la bougie (Sale by auction) 1/29/12 – As mentioned in the previous Maigret of the month for L'homme dans la rue [The man in the street], the story we are concerned with today was published for the first time in the weekly, Sept Jours, for April 20 and 27, 1941. The first publication in a collection was in the volume, Maigret et les petits cochons sans queue [Maigret and the little pigs without tails], published for the first time in August, 1950. That volume included 9 stories, of which only two were Maigrets. It's a rather disparate collection, since the stories included were published at very different dates. Below is a list of these stories, in the order in which they appear in the volume, along with an indication of their dates and places of writing... Les petits cochons sans queue [The little pigs without tails], Nov. 28, 1946, Bradenton Beach (Florida). We note that Maigret doesn't appear in this story, which gives its name to the title of the volume... the title was probably chosen for marketing purposes, as the book was included in Presses de la Cité's "collection Maigret", and using the Chief Inspector's name no doubt contributed to sales... Sous peine de mort [On pain of death], November 24, 1946, Bradenton Beach. A story without Maigret, not to be confused with Peine de mort [Death Penalty], in which Maigret does appear. Le petit tailleur et le chapelier [The little tailor and the hat maker], April 1, 1947, Bradenton Beach. A story without Maigret (see an interesting note about it here at Repérages). Un certain monsieur Berquin, August 28, 1946, Saint Andrews (Canada), a story without Maigret. L'escale de Buenaventura [The stop at Buenaventura], August 31, 1946, Saint Andrews, a story without Maigret. The next two stories are Maigrets, L'homme dans la rue [The man in the street] and Vente à la bougie [Sale by auction], both written in 1939 at Nieul-sur-Mer (Charente-Maritime). Le deuil de Fonsine [Mourning for Fonsine], January 9, 1945, Les Sables-d'Olonne (Vendée), a story without Maigret. Madame Quatre et ses enfants [Mme Quatre and her children], January 1945, Les Sables-d'Olonne, a story without Maigret. This short story assembles in its few pages, the essential ingredients of a Maigret investigation... distinctive characters, clues unraveled by Maigret, who arrives at the truth "without seeming to", the Chief Inspector's method of questioning, keeping the suspects "out of breath, minute by minute, having them repeat 10 times the same actions, the same words". And if the story, a murder committed by a woman to keep the man she loves and trump her young rival, could have taken place anywhere at all, the author however decided to set it in the marshes of Vendée, whose humid atmosphere of a rainy January emphasizes the sordid side. Maigret, assigned – for some reason – to the flying squad at Nantes, installs himself in an isolated inn at Pont-du-Grau, battered by wind and rain, and with glasses of white wine, beer and calvados, tries to untangle the knot of the plot, where the theft of a well-filled wallet could be attributed to any of the protagonists... all could have had an interest in taking a large sum... But which went all the way? It's probably this theme of a "motive available to all" which allowed the scenarists of the episode adapted for the series with Bruno Crémer, to modify the story and change the guilty party! Otherwise, this episode is one of the best of the series, and I encourage you to see it, to see how a skillful scenarist, knowledgeable of Maigret's world, manages to draw from a few pages, a successful and convincing adaptation... Murielle Wenger original French

A phenomenal author and his phenomenal character Georges Simenon was by many standards the most successful author of the 20th century, and the character he created, Inspector Jules Maigret, who made him rich and famous, ranks only after Sherlock Holmes as the world's best known fictional detective. There is nothing commonplace about the life of Georges Simenon, and he and his works have been the subject of innumerable books and articles. The Maigret stories are unlike any other detective stories — the crime and the details of unraveling it are often less central to our interest than Maigret's journey through the discovery of the cast of characters... towards an understanding of man. Simenon said he was obsessed with a search for the "naked man" — man without his cultural protective coloration, and he followed his quest as much in the Maigrets as in his "hard" novels. Although most of Simenon's work is available in English, it was originally written in French. Simenon was born and raised in Belgium, and while Paris was "the city" for him, the home of Maigret, he was 'an international,' a world traveler who moved often and lived for many years in France, the United States, and Switzerland. Because he wrote in French, and for the most part lived in French-speaking countries, most of the books and magazine articles about him were written in French as well. Unlike his own books however, many of these have never been available in translation. Because Simenon lived to be nearly 90, and left a legacy of hundreds of books — from which more than 50 films have been made, along with hundreds of television episodes — there is much to collect, to examine, to display and discuss. This site takes Maigret as its theme, and Simenon as its sub-theme. There is much here about all aspects of Simenon and Maigret, but not so much about Simenon's other, non-Maigret books. There are full texts of many magazine and journal articles, including many translated into English here, as far as I am aware, for the first time. In this way non-French-speaking Maigret fans can now share, in a time-compressed form, articles about Simenon and Maigret spanning more than 70 years, as well as a forum for discussion and contribution which... Enough. There's a lot here. Enjoy your visit. Come back again, and feel free to contribute to the Forum. Corrections, comments, and suggestions are welcome. Steve Trussel

Bibliography: booklists etc.

This site, first opened on August 29, 1996 as "Inspector Maigret," has spread in various directions from its beginning as primarily a bibliography of editions in English. The "new look" reflects various aspects of this development, but the bibliography remains a central feature.

Counting Maigret: statistics etc.

For the forty-year period from 1931 through 1972, a new Inspector Maigret investigation appeared at the average rate about 2.5 per year: 75 novels and 28 short stories, 103 episodes of what has been called George Simenon's "Maigret Saga."

Texts: Maigret on-line

Full-length texts - reviews and articles about Maigret and Simenon, as well as new translations of stories, articles, (and even a novel!) which have never appeared in English.

Index to the texts and articles on various pages.

Simenon

Articles from the Simenon symposiums, journals, program listings, and other not-Maigret-only Simenon material.

Gallery: Maigret covers and photos

Maigret paperback covers, postage stamps, theme music, locations... more.

Plots

Plots of all the Maigret novels and stories.

Shopping for Maigret: books on-line

The one-button, quick-links to the main on-line book dealers are still available, for shopping for Maigret titles.

Maigret on Screen: films and videos

Various aspects of Maigret on film and video.

Maigret on the Web: Links

Links to the rest of the on-line world of Maigret on the Internet.

background photo: adapted from "Two models for Maigret,
Commissaires Massu and Guillaume." [Ph. Keystone]
"Quai des Orfèvres on the Cité Island at night" [Jean-Pierre Ducatez]

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