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What happens when a gentleman burglar turns his daring mind to mysteries that leave everyone else baffled?
In Maurice Leblanc’s The Eight Strokes of the Clock, Arsène Lupin takes the name Prince Rénine and turns from theft to detection. Hortense Daniel, a young woman who becomes his friend and companion, joins him as he faces one strange case after another. Danger, deception, and a touch of romance give these puzzles more than clever answers.
The collection brings together eight separate cases, each moving from a puzzling event toward an explanation. Rénine meets crimes and mysteries that defeat other people’s reasoning. Read the tales in order to follow his growing friendship with Hortense, or enjoy the satisfaction of a self-contained puzzle. The prose stays clear and quick, while fear and feeling keep the mysteries from becoming cold exercises.
What you’ll discover
- Lupin turns detective Meet the gentleman burglar in a different role, solving crimes rather than chiefly committing them.
- Eight separate puzzles Follow each strange event toward a clever explanation, with surprising answers along the way.
- A companion in danger Get to know Hortense Daniel as she shares Rénine’s cases and becomes his friend.
- Romance amid the mystery Discover tales where danger and fear sit beside warmth, feeling, and a touch of romance.
- Quick reasoning and charm Enjoy clear, lively storytelling that gives ingenious detection room without demanding one long plot.
Who will love it
Readers who enjoy clever puzzles, locked-room murders, quick-witted heroes and fair clues will love this collection. So will lovers of gentleman rogues and spirited heroines.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- Eight adventures offer a new beginning
- One strange object opens a mystery
- A bluff puts guilt under pressure
- A painful story holds people captive
- The locked cabin raises the wrong question
- Fear threatens Rénine's clear thinking
- Perfect evidence can tell a lie
- The lost clasp becomes a test
- Small facts carry the whole case
Who’s who
- Prince Serge RénineA smiling, masterful adventurer who solves crimes by logic and bluff, and who hopes to win Hortense's heart after eight adventures.
- Hortense DanielA young woman with a ruined dowry and a dull life, who becomes Rénine's companion and asks him to find her mother's lost clasp.
- Geneviève AymardHortense's friend, who faces marriage to a man she hates and begs Rénine to help her beloved Jean Louis overcome the obstacles separating them.
- Jean LouisA gentle, weak-willed young man in Brittany, torn between two women who each claim to be his mother.
- Rose AndréeA film actress, the Happy Princess of the screen, who vanishes on the day she is to sail for America.
- Jérôme VignalA well-off young neighbor who wants to rescue an unhappy wife from her harsh husband and is accused of murder.
- PancaldiA pale antique dealer in Paris who trusts a stolen clasp to bring him luck and will not part with it.
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The Eight Strokes of the Clock
by Maurice Leblanc · 1923
A prince promises a bored woman eight adventures, and a long-silent clock starts the count.
Easy read2–5 hours to read20 languages
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“Once you have the first link in a chain, you’re bound to reach the last, whether you like it or not.”
In short
A clock that has not run for twenty years suddenly strikes eight inside a shuttered château, and a bored young woman hears the sound that changes her life. Maurice Leblanc, the French creator of the gentleman thief Arsène Lupin, wrote these eight linked tales.
The Eight Strokes of the Clock at a glance
- Reading time
- About 4 h3 h 10 min fast, 4 h 50 min slow
- Length
- 57,600 words
- Library level
- Easy short sentences, plain words
- First published
- 1923by Maurice Leblanc
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). How long the classics take to read · Updated
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A silent clock strikes and starts everything
On the first morning of the hunt at the Château de la Marèze, Hortense Daniel plans to run away with a man she does not love. Three shots burst the tires of his car. She is sure Prince Rénine fired them, and she gallops to the boarded-up Domaine de Halingre, where he waits. He forces the gates and she follows him in.
In the drawing room they hear a steady ticking, though no one has entered the house in twenty years. Rénine opens the case of a grandfather clock, and the pendulum is swinging. It strikes eight, twice. Behind the weights he finds a brass telescope pulled out to its full length.
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Details
- First published
- 1923
- Language
- English
- Reading time
- 4 h 35 min
- Level
- Easy read
Cite this edition
Leblanc, Maurice. The Eight Strokes of the Clock. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-eight-strokes-of-the-clock.
Leblanc, M. (2026). The eight strokes of the clock. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-eight-strokes-of-the-clock (Original work published 1923)
Leblanc, Maurice. The Eight Strokes of the Clock. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-eight-strokes-of-the-clock.
@book{leblanc2026eight,
author = {Leblanc, Maurice},
title = {The Eight Strokes of the Clock},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-eight-strokes-of-the-clock},
note = {First published 1923}
}
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What is The Eight Strokes of the Clock about?
It is a set of eight linked mystery tales in which Prince Rénine and Hortense Daniel take on eight adventures over three months. Each case brings a crime or a secret, and the series is held together by a wager and an old clock.
Is Prince Rénine really Arsène Lupin?
Leblanc's opening note hints that he is. It says Lupin told these adventures as if they happened to a friend named Rénine, yet the hero's actions and character suggest the two are one person. The author leaves it to the reader to decide.
What does the clock at Halingre mean in the story?
The old clock in the abandoned Château de Halingre strikes eight on the day of the first adventure. Rénine ties the eight strokes to eight adventures, and the last stroke is to mark the day when Hortense must grant his reward.
The author
Maurice Leblanc
1864–1941 · French mystery novelist
Maurice Leblanc was a French writer born in Rouen in 1864. He wrote novels and short stories, including the Arsène Lupin series, which began in 1905. His books include The Hollow Needle, published in 1909, and The Crystal Stopper, published in 1912. He died in Perpignan in 1941.
“Once you have the first link in a chain, you’re bound to reach the last, whether you like it or not.”
More by Maurice Leblanc
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