The Mystery of the Yellow Room
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| Author | Gaston Leroux |
|---|---|
| Original title | Le mystère de la chambre jaune |
| Language | French |
| Series | Joseph Rouletabille |
| Genre | Mystery fiction |
| Publisher | L'illustration (in serial) & Jacques Lafitte (single volume) |
Publication date | 1907 in serial (1908 as on volume) |
| Publication place | France |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover and Paperback), Audiobook |
| ISBN | NA Parameter error in {{ISBNT}}: invalid character |
| Followed by | The Perfume of the Lady in Black |
The Mystery of the Yellow Room: Extraordinary Adventures of Joseph Rouletabille, Reporter is a locked room mystery crime fiction novel written by Gaston Leroux, first published in France in the literary supplement of L'illustration from September 1907 to November 1907, then as a one volume book in 1908.
It is the first novel starring fictional detective Joseph Rouletabille.
The story concerns a complex and seemingly impossible crime in which the criminal appears to disappear from a locked room. Such is the mechanical and logistic complexity of the puzzle that Leroux provides the reader with detailed and precise diagrams and floorplans illustrating the scene of the crime. Further impossible problems emerge as the story progresses towards a dramatic denouement. The emphasis of the story is firmly on the intellectual challenge to the reader, who will almost certainly be hard pressed to unravel every detail of the situation.
John Dickson Carr, the master of locked-room mystery, named this as the 'finest locked room tale ever written' in his 1935 novel The Hollow Man.
The novel finds its continuation in The Perfume of the Lady in Black where a number of the characters familiar from this story reappear.
Plot introduction
The crime takes place at the Chateau de Glandier, and the daughter of a famous scientist is found murdered. The strange thing is the room is locked from the inside and there are no other ways in. A police detenctive is involved but the young journalist Monseiur Rouletabille is more concerned with unravelling the mystery by use of reasoning and logic.
Plot summary
Template:Spoiler Miss Stangerson is dead, killed in a locked room at the Chateau. Joseph Rouletabille starts to discern that the crime is to be solved, if at all, by establishing motive and the reason for the locked room. At the end of the novel, clues stack up and the reader discovers that the criminal was actually the police detective, Frederic Larsan, who is really a notorious criminal, Ballmeyer. His victim (who does not actually die, despite the fact that the old American translation constantly describes the crime as murder) is found to have locked the room herself after the attack- but she is found to have excellent reasons for concealing the attacker and her true relationship to him, as he is her first husband, long thought to be dead. In a sequel "The Perfume of the Lady in Black" the reader also discovers that their son is none other than Joseph Roulettabille, who unmasked the identity of the criminal in the previous volume.
Characters in "The Mystery of the Yellow Room"
- Joseph Rouletabille – the young journalist and amateur detective, protagonist
- Frederic Larsan – the police detective, but really "Ballmeyer"
- Miss Stangerson – daughter of a famous scientist, the victim
Film, TV or theatrical adaptations
- The Mystery of the Yellow Room (1919) at IMDb
- Mystère de la chambre jaune, Le (1930) at IMDb
- Mystère de la chambre jaune, Le (1949) at IMDb
- Mystère de la chambre jaune, Le (2003) at IMDb
Release details
- 1907, France, L'illustration, Pub date ? September 1907—? November 1907, magazine serial (in French)
- 1908, France, ? (ISBN NA), Pub date ? ? 1908, hardback (First edition, in French)
- 1934, UK, Oxford University Press (ISBN 019832345X), Pub date ? December 1934, paperback (in French)
- 1977, UK, Dover Publications (ISBN 0486234606), Pub date ? April 1977, paperback
- 1978, UK, Remploy (ISBN 0706607597), Pub date 25 August 1978, hardback
- 1996, USA, Books on Tape (ISBN 5557127712), Pub date ? January 1996, audio book (Cassette)
- 1996, USA, Buccaneer Books (ISBN 0899661416), Pub date ? June 1996, hardback (Library binding)
- 1997, UK, Dedalus Ltd (ISBN 1873982380), Pub date 10 August 1997, paperback
- 2002, USA, Indypublish.com (ISBN 1404320032), Pub date 1 August 2002, paperback
- 2002, USA, Indypublish.com (ISBN 1404320024), Pub date 1 August 2002, hardback
- 2004, UK, Thorndike Press (ISBN 078626991X), Pub date 2 Nov 2004, hardback
- 2005, USA, Kessinger Publishing (ISBN 0766193667), Pub date 1 April 2005, paperback
- 2006, UK, Blackstone Audiobooks (ISBN 0786175230), Pub date ? April 2006, audio book (MP3 CD)
- 2006, UK, Dover Publications (ISBN 0486449289), Pub date 7 April 2006, paperback