Mephista

by Maurice Limat

  Ferenczi’s father had started his company in 1879, with the notion of publishing small, inexpensive paperbacks. It was a great idea, which immediately sparked many imitators. Until then, popular novels were published in large formats, often as open-ended series. Ferenczi conceived of a cheap, small-sized, self-contained paperback, as a way to make popular literature accessible to everyone. The success of his formula lasted for decades.

  Were they truly novels, or instead novellas? Did it matter? I remember having an argument with Léon Groc, another great popular novelist, who claimed that what we wrote was just overblown short stories, but I disagreed. Our stories were structured like novels, divided into chapters, with character arcs. They really were “little” novels.

  Ferenczi asked all his authors to make a special effort to fit within the length of the new imprint. Obviously, he must have been pleased with my manuscript, since La Montagne aux Vampires was the first volume he released. Le Petit Roman d’Aventure normally retailed for the very low price of 25 centimes, but mine was sold, on a promotional basis, for five centimes! Ferenczi nevertheless paid me a bonus of 100 francs. I never knew how many copies La Montagne had sold, but sales must have been tremendous for him to pay me a bonus!

  Ferenczi had at least a dozen different imprints—adventure novels, detective stories, romance... One of the editors in charge was a modest and simple lady named Mrs. Paulet. I can never repay her enough for her kindness. At the time, she was almost fifty. I never learned how she had arrived at her position. There was a rumor that he had once owned a hotel... She could make or break the career of a new author. Mrs. Paulet was gifted with an incomparable flair for sniffing out new talent, and remarkably sound judgment. She advised and guided the writers, asked them to cut or, on the contrary, add substance to a chapter, or make changes, and her requests were always justified and improved the books. She could take a half-baked, mediocre manuscript and turn it into a perfectly decent novel.

  She read so many manuscripts that she ended up developing neuralgia in her face from the effort. She loved adventure novels and detective stories—but not the romance novels, which she found tiresome and repetitive. She was responsible for putting out ten books a week, which was a tremendous output. But if she was happy with a writer, she would send letters saying, “send us more books.”

  Alas! Even the best things must come to an end and the time came when the good Mrs. Paulet had to retire. Ferenczi replaced her with a Mademoiselle D*** who allegedly had a college degree, but whose first act was to reject a manuscript by Max-André Dazergues, one of Ferenczi’s very best authors. I remember receiving a letter from a distraught colleague and friend, also very talented, who had in fact influenced me. He simply did not understand what was happening. It was the first time in thirty years that he had a received a rejection letter. Shortly thereafter, it happened to me, too. But the writing was already on the wall: romance magazines were stealing readers away from paperbacks, and other imprints were suffering from the competition with more hard-edged, longer books. Ferenczi floundered and the company folded two years after the death of Henri Ferenczi in 1964.

  Other popular literature publishers

  At Nicea, they changed their minds all the time. I wrote eleven Dollar Dog novels for them and I was starting on the twelfth, when I was told they were cancelling that imprint. The same happened with another series, Antarès, Capitaine Corsaire; I had written seventeen of them when they suddenly decided to stop. I said, “Let me do the eighteenth book, because that will conclude the storyline,” but they refused. It was a shame because I loved writing pirate stories. We constantly had to haggle over prices there. Normally, I would have been paid 5,000 francs for a short novel of this type, but they wanted to pay only 3,500 francs, so I had to turn down several other projects of theirs. When you write a lot of books, you want to write something that you would enjoy reading. That's the secret; you must love your job—and I really did! Passionately! I didn’t become very rich, because one can’t get really rich in this business. However, I had a lot of fun.

  At the end of the war, I went to ABC editions, which published two or three novels of mine. Then, they became S.E.G. after they merged with another small publisher. I contributed to several of their imprints, with a lot of detective and espionage novels.

  Their editor was Edward Brooker, a writer of English origins, already known in the business before the war. He had some tremendous ideas and started an espionage imprint. They were a series of twelve episodes in the magazine format, and he had made up the titles and commissioned the covers ahead of time. When I was asked to come in, there was a large board with all the twelve covers on it in his office. The first eleven episodes had already been plotted by Brooker. He said to me, “I’m not planning to stay in Europe because I think another war will start soon, so you’ll finish the series.” Then he left for Australia, and we never saw or heard of him again. So I wrote the twelfth episode based on the title (The Mysterious Motorcar) and the cover image.

  The publisher was happy and asked me to continue, so we began a new series called Secret Service, and I wrote sixty-five episodes of it. Then I received a telephone call from a colleague of mine, Michel Lebrun, who told me: “Maurice, they’re playing you for a chump. Do you have any ideas how many copies of Secret Service they sell?” So I asked two of my friends to check with the newsagents; they discovered that the book was selling out in 48 hours. The sales were averaging 50,000 copies, which was incredible!

  Naturally, I had a shouting match with the publisher when I asked for a raise. They refused. So I killed off the hero—he got run over by a train—and wrote the words The End. That's why I moved to Grand Damier publishers. And from there, to Fleuve Noir. Once I was at Fleuve Noir, there was no reason for me to go elsewhere. They were wonderful, and our relationship lasted 28 years. I did not regret a minute of it.

  My years with Fleuve Noir

  I had already written a few short science fiction novels for Ferenczi: Le mal des étoiles [Evil from the Stars], Les forçats de l’espace [The Convicts of Space], Le soleil de l’épouvante [Star of Terror], Courrier interplanétaire [Interplanetary Courier]... Then, in 1955, I wrote SOS Galaxie for a short-lived publisher called Metal. It was my first “real” SF novel, in which I introduced the character of Captain Martinbras, whom I later reused in my Martervénux series.

  The following year, I wrote Monsieur Cosmos for Grand Damier. It was very well received, so I followed it with two more novels, Pas de planète pour les terriens [No Home for Earthmen] and La planète sans soleil. [The Sunless World] But the publisher wasn’t interested in SF. They cancelled their imprint, preferring to concentrate on detective and espionage novels. However, they were on friendly terms with Fleuve Noir, and they had the courtesy of sending one of my unpublished SF manuscripts to them.

  Soon after, François Richard, who was then in charge of the Anticipation imprint, telephoned me to let me know that they had read my manuscript Les Enfants du Chaos [Children of Chaos], and decided to buy it. That was in 1959. It was the first novel of mine they bought. I was, of course, happy, especially after Richard told me: “There is no question of buying a single book; that’s not what we want; we want an author, full-time; do you agree?” Of course, I did. So we signed a contract and I immediately gave him two more manuscripts I had waiting for a publisher. He asked me to do five books per year. I told him that when it came to SF, that wasn’t so easy, and I negotiated him down to four.

  Fleuve Noir also asked me to provide a sketch for the cover artist, the famous René Brantonne.13 After the book came out, I had to pinch myself to believe in my own luck! It was the same feeling I had twenty years before when my first novel had come out. This was totally new and exciting for me!

  Océan, mon esclave [Ocean my slave] (1961) was one of the first novels I wrote for Fleuve Noir under my new contract. What was special about it was that before writing it, I dreamed it, in the truest sense of the word. I woke up one morning with the st
ory already in my mind. That had never happened to me before. It’s been one of my most popular novels ever since.

  I have always felt that there are no limits to what one could write in science fiction, which is why I loved doing it. It was such a liberating experience! If you write a romance novel, you’ll always end up with the same scenarios, good or bad. If you do a detective novel, you’ve got to be very careful with the clues, the science, etc. I had several policemen write to me to complain about some details I had gotten wrong. But with science fiction, your imagination is given free reign. It is not unlike writing poetry—SF is the poetry of the 20th century, and I hope of the 21st as well. Poetry has no limits, no boundaries. Why not poetic novels? I have always said that a science fiction novel is a poetic work.

  Horror novels

  Technically speaking, my first horror novel was La Révolte des Spectres [The Revolt of the Spectres], which I wrote in 1954 and which was published in a new horror imprint put out by L’Arabesque, another publisher with whom I worked in the 1950s. After I joined Fleuve Noir, I asked François Richard if there was anything else they needed. He suggested I write for their new Angoisse imprint, which they had started in 1954 and was short of manuscripts. So I penned Crucifie le Hibou [Crucify the Owl] (1961), which I dedicated to all those who fight against the suffering and death of animals. This was an expression of the remorse I felt, because when I was a kid on the farm, I was so bored that I wasn’t always kind to frogs, moles and other field animals.

  Of course, as a lot of other novelists like to do, I often use recurring characters. I had done this in my Anticipation novels, by introducing Robin Muscat, then Chevalier Coqdor. For Angoisse, I recalled my old friend Teddy Verano, P.I., back into service, and then I had the idea of creating Mephista, which was really two persons. There is this great actress, but also a starlet who looks like her and has made a pact with the Devil. I wrote thirteen volumes in the series and would have enjoyed doing more, but the publisher decided to cancel the imprint in 1970. That’s a shame, because I really liked my two Mephistas.

  The End of my Career

  My last novel for Fleuve Noir was Atoxa des Abysses [Atoxa-of-the-Depths] in 1987. It was based on an idea that I had had in mind for some time, because I love stories of the deep. I created a romance between a young man and what he thinks is, at first, a mermaid, but who actually belongs to an aquatic race who are the descendents of Mû. For her love, my hero gradually undergoes a mutation, which normally would require thousands, of years, but which, in his case, occurs over the span of several weeks. He eventually becomes an aquatic creature and disappears into the ocean. His friends only find his clothes left on the beach. He has gone to join the beautiful Atoxa underwater.

  This was the end point of my literary career. François Richard was gone and there were major changes in the literary direction that his successors at Fleuve Noir wished to take. They hired a whole new bunch of writers, but in the end, they could not stave off the decline. One after the other, all their once-wonderful imprints were cancelled. Anticipation lasted until 1997, but at the end, it was only a shade of what it had been.

  My literary career spanned more than half a century. I’m happy because this was my childhood dream, and I achieved it. I never wanted to be anything but a popular novelist, and I became one. Sometimes, I think of all the people I must have touched, because I had millions of readers. These books that one could carry in one’s pocket or read in the train, no longer exist today. Yet they entranced several generations. This form of literature is no more. To research it today is like doing paleontology. When I take a look back, however, I say to myself: I am a survivor, the last the survivor of a vanished world. I can look over my life now by looking over my books. I have lived halfway between dream and reality. But it’s good to be able to realize one’s dreams.

  The Life and Times of Teddy Verano

  Teddy Verano, a private eye who often dealt with mad scientists, robots, and demonic beings, was created by Maurice Limat in 1936 and made his first appearance in La Villa aux Squelettes [The House of Skeletons], when he was called to investigate what at first seemed to be a natural death, but in reality turned out to be the work of a madman who had learned to weaponize fear.

  According to Limat, the first name “Teddy” was borrowed from the family cats who were named “Teddy” after the nickname given to the British soldiers who had fought alongside the French during World War I, and the surname “Verano” meant “Summer” in Spanish.

  Verano’s hair is brown; his eyes are identified as being hazelnut in color, and his kind but ironic smile is often mentioned in the books. Limat himself played the part of Teddy Verano when his mystery play L’Ecole du Mystère [The School of Mystery] was performed twice on stage, the first time in 1946 at the Jena Theater, and the second time in 1958 at the Coliseum Theater, both in Paris.

  Verano returned in 1937 in Le Mystère des Hommes Volants [The Mystery of the Flying Men]. The following year, he freed Princess Sonia from a diabolical secret prison in Sous la Cagoule [Under the Hood] and narrowly escaped being decapitated in La Guillotine Clandestine [The Clandestine Guillotine]. He also appeared in the more conventional adventure novels Radio Infernale [Radio from Hell], Mystère au Grand Large [Mystery at Sea], L’Enigme du Parachute [The Mystery of the Parachute] and Le Puits de la Mort Lente [The Pit of Slow Death].

  Interestingly, the character of police detective Guy Farnese, who later returned as a supporting character in the Verano series, first appeared independently in La Matraque du Fantôme [The Ghost’s Truncheon] in 1938 and fought the evil fortune-teller Demonia in La Reine de l’Epouvante [The Queen of Terror] in 1939. Farnese got promoted and eventually ended up Police Commissioner in the Mephista series.

  In 1939, as Limat was drafted into the Army, Verano and Farnese had to take a back seat to their creator’s military obligations and other, more fantastic works, although Verano still appeared in On a volé un dirigeable [The Stolen Airship], L’Empreinte de la Panthère [The Mark of the Panther] and L’Espion invisible [The Invisible Spy, 1940].

  Verano made a brief appearance in the 1942 novel Le Moulin Maudit [The Accursed Windmill], but returned in full glory 1944 in L’Ile Maudite [The Accursed Island], followed by Satanix, in which he freed a young widow and her little boy from the threat of the eponymous madman. In 1945, Verano starred in Mille et Une Blessures [A Thousand and One Wounds] and Meurtre en Serre Chaude [Murder in a Hothouse].

  In the following year came Le Vase aux Sept Dragons [The Vase with Seven Dragons], in which Verano had to solve the mystery of a pet kidnapper. The remarkable L’Assassin est mort deux fois [The Murderer Who Died Twice], in which a sea-horse is key to solving the mystery, was rejected six times, but, after it was published, was reissued nine times and won much critical acclaim. Also in 1946, Verano solved a traditional locked room mystery in Le Manoir aux feu follets [The Manor of the Will-o’-the-wisps] and defeated a mad scientist in Le Meurtre d’un Robot [The Murder of a Robot].

  In 1947-48 Verano played sidekick to another hero, Marco, in a series of exotic adventures in which romance played a major role. This included a five-volume series-within-the-series subtitled Les Forçats de l’Amour [The Convicts of Love], followed by La Femme à la Cape Rouge [The woman in the Red Cloak] (1948), La Nuit des Vaudoux [Voodoo Night], Cœur de feu, cœur de glace [Fiery Heart, Icy Heart] and La Déesse de Fièvre [The Fever Goddess]. In it, Verano met a strange and fascinating psych medium, the beautiful Lionella, in what was his first venture into the Occult.

  Verano still starred in more conventional mysteries such as La Mort au cinquième acte [Death in Act Five] (1947), the spooky Le Club des Monstres (1948), Le Cercle de Minuit [The Midnight Circle] (1949), La Mort joue au billard [Death as a Pool Player] (1949), in which Limat’s billiard skills helped him craft an ingenious riddle.

  In the 1950s, Teddy Verano’s investigations, reflecting the mood of the public, began incorporating more fanciful elements, borrowed either fro
m science fiction or horror tropes. Bloody murders were often hidden behind the trappings of fake science or bargain basement grand-guignol.

  Verano appeared in L’Assassin frappera le... [The Murderer Will Strike On...] (1950), L’Homme aux Aquariums [The Aquarium Man] (1950), L’Etoile de Sang [The Bloody Star] (1952), La Mariée Masquée [The Masked Bride] (1952), Du Tonnerre... le gars ! [By Thunder, What a Man!] (1952), a boxing mystery, Le Serpent de Lumière [The Snake of Light] (1952) about a Hindu death-cult, Le Vol des Plans Z [The Theft of Blueprints Z] (1953), an espionage novel with sci-fi overtones, L’Etrange Supplice [The Strange Torture] (1953), in which a madman used raptors to spread panic, Les Morts-Vivants [The Living Dead] (1954), another espionage thriller despite its horror title, and Rue des Mauvais Garçons [Street of Bad Boys] (1954) about the then-headline-making issue of juvenile delinquency,

  Verano’s first, true supernatural adventure was La Révolte des Spectres [The Revolt of the Specters], published in 1954). It was a herald of things to come, when Limat moved to Fleuve Noir in 1959. Meanwhile, Verano appeared in Fais tes Griffes... Panthère! [Sharpen your Claws, Panther!] (1955), Bas les pattes! [Hands Off!] (1955), Meurtre d’un Vampire [Murder of a Vampire] (1955), which was not about a supernatural blood drinker, but a murderer using vampire bats, and On n’a jamais tué comme ça! [They Never Killed Like That!] (1955), another thriller in which the gimmick is the use of carnivorous flowers.

  By the time Limat started writing Angoisse novels for Fleuve Noir, Teddy Verano hadn’t aged a day, even though he had been active in his mid-to-late 40ies since 1936. Since almost thirty years had passed, it is tempting to imagine that, sometime during the intervening years, the original Teddy was succeeded by a “Teddy Jr.”