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Audiobook editionPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What dreadful secret can hide behind the old stone houses of a quiet Paris island?
In The Bloody Doll, Gaston Leroux brings mystery and gothic dread to the Île Saint-Louis, a small island in the Seine. Old houses and quiet quays frame a tale of obsession, dark secrets and murder. The setting invites you to look beyond the calm street, toward hidden lives and a crime that must be solved.
Leroux brings a reporter’s eye to this dark world. His work in journalism and the courts shapes his fiction, where suspense meets strong feeling. Here, the pleasure lies in the slow uncovering of secrets: dramatic exchanges, sudden danger and long talks that sort out what is known. Read for the gathering unease, rather than the pace of a modern police story.
What you’ll discover
- A quiet island’s shadows Explore an old Paris quarter where stone houses and quiet quays frame dark secrets.
- Obsession at the heart Enter a gothic mystery whose darkness draws on obsession, hidden lives and murder.
- A reporter’s eye Discover crime fiction shaped by Leroux’s experience as a journalist and court reporter.
- Secrets revealed slowly Savour suspense in small doses as the story gradually uncovers what lies beneath.
- Drama and sudden danger Find strong feelings and searching conversations in the dramatic style of early French mystery.
Who will love it
Readers who love gothic atmosphere, old Paris, locked houses and strange science will enjoy this book. It also suits those drawn to unreliable narrators and vampire legends.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- Love turns a watcher into a suspect
- Violence draws Bénédict into the secret
- Protection leads into another threatening house
- Old papers give fear a history
- A bottle changes the possible explanation
- Bénédict loses control of his account
- Appearance becomes a dangerous false witness
- The telling becomes part of the mystery
- Every account needs a second reading
Who’s who
- Bénédict MassonA shy, ugly art bookbinder and poet who writes memoirs and loves Christine from across the street.
- Christine NorbertThe watchmaker's calm, beautiful daughter and a sculptor, who hides a secret guest and trusts a neighbor with a strange favor.
- Old NorbertA secretive watchmaker who works behind green curtains on a clock with square wheels and chases perpetual motion.
- Jacques CotentinChristine's cousin and fiancé, a brilliant medical prosector who works late at night on experiments about life and death.
- GabrielA handsome young stranger in Revolution costume who is hidden in a cabinet and nursed in secret.
- Marquis de CoulterayA hearty, loud nobleman who looks exactly like his four ancestors and employs Christine and Bénédict in his library.
- The MarquiseThe marquis's pale English wife, who believes her husband is an immortal vampire and begs Christine to stay.
- Saïb KhanAn Indian doctor with a hypnotic gaze who keeps the marquise alive with serums and strange methods.
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The Bloody Doll
by Gaston Leroux · 1923
A lovesick bookbinder spies on the watchmaker's daughter and sees a man step out of her cabinet.
Easy read2–5 hours to read20 languages
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“Life is stronger than death!”
In short
It is nine in the evening in late May, on the Île Saint-Louis in Paris. A bookbinder named Bénédict Masson stands behind his curtains and watches the shop across the street, where a watchmaker's daughter hangs her hat on a peg.
The Bloody Doll at a glance
- Reading time
- About 4 h 10 min3 h 20 min fast, 5 h slow
- Length
- 59,700 words
- Library level
- Easy short sentences, plain words
- First published
- 1923by Gaston Leroux
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 poet watches a window across the street
Bénédict Masson is an art bookbinder of about thirty-five. His shop stands on a quiet corner of the Île Saint-Louis. Across the street, old Norbert the watchmaker works behind green serge curtains, building a clock with square wheels. His daughter Christine is the woman Bénédict worships.
One night Bénédict climbs to his attic and peers through a skylight. He watches Christine creep down to her father's door, then unlock a huge cabinet. A man steps out, and she kisses him. Bénédict is crushed, yet he feels a dark joy, because the stranger wrongs her fiancé, her cousin Jacques Cotentin. Christine calls him Gabriel.
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Details
- First published
- 1923
- Language
- English
- Reading time
- 4 h 55 min
- Level
- Easy read
Cite this edition
Leroux, Gaston. The Bloody Doll. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-bloody-doll.
Leroux, G. (2026). The bloody doll. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-bloody-doll (Original work published 1923)
Leroux, Gaston. The Bloody Doll. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-bloody-doll.
@book{leroux2026bloody,
author = {Leroux, Gaston},
title = {The Bloody Doll},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-bloody-doll},
note = {First published 1923}
}
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What is The Bloody Doll about?
It follows Bénédict Masson, a lonely bookbinder on the Île Saint-Louis in Paris, who spies on the watchmaker's daughter Christine and is drawn into her family's secret and a marquis's household haunted by vampire talk.
Who is Gabriel in The Bloody Doll?
Gabriel is a handsome young man in Revolution-era clothes who appears from Christine's cabinet. His identity is a central mystery, and the story follows the strange care that Christine, her father and Jacques give him.
Who wrote The Bloody Doll and when?
Gaston Leroux, the French novelist behind The Phantom of the Opera, wrote it. It is a work of fiction set in a Paris still marked by the First World War, with real streets and landmarks.
The author
Gaston Leroux
1868–1927 · French mystery novelist
Gaston Leroux was a French author and journalist born in Paris in 1868. He wrote mystery novels, including The Mystery of the Yellow Room, published in 1907, and The Phantom of the Opera, serialized in 1909–1910. He later lived in Nice, where he died in 1927.
“Life is stronger than death!”
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