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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: La folle de Maigret (Maigret and the Madwoman) 1/21/10 – 1. Introduction A number of "Simenonians" and several "Maigretphiles" believe that the last Maigrets of the corpus are not among the best, and that the vein of the author had run a little dry... But I'm not entirely of that opinion, and if the best Maigrets are not necessarily the last, nevertheless there are still, in this end of the corpus, several gems worthy of attention... And Maigret and the Madwoman is no doubt one... For me, it's an absolutely typical Maigret. In this novel, Simenon takes up several notes from his own writing, and evokes with a certain underlying tenderness, some of the most characteristic themes of Maigret's world... Consider, for example, the "topographical" description of the Quai des Orfèvres at the beginning of Ch. 1 (the courtyard of the PJ, the staircase, the long hallway, Maigret's office on the second floor), springtime in Paris, the Chief Inspector's meals, or how he spends his Sunday with Mme Maigret. This novel is a mixture of lightness, with its evocations of Maigret themes, and gravity, with the basis of the plot, in particular the description of Angèle's future, having certain accents of the "hard" novels. 2. Maigret in May... In the Maigrets, the weather is always an important element of the plot... The Chief Inspector uses the weather as a true barometer of his moods. Sensitive to atmospheric conditions, Maigret rejoices like a child at the slightest ray of sunshine sliding over an object, or the odor of springtime, or the first snow. I've already analyzed elsewhere the Chief Inspector's relationship with the weather, and perhaps you recall, faithful internet Maigretphiles, that I discovered, through an analysis of the corpus, that the majority of Maigret's cases take place, contrary to expectations, in springtime, and that the further he advances into the corpus, the more often the author places his character in an investigation during the warmer half of the year. Might you be interested in knowing which cases took place in which season? Here are two tables which present a response: Novels green = spring   blue = summer   red = autumn   yellow = winter complete article original French Murielle Wenger

 

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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