Georges Simenon Biography and List of Works

Belgian-born French novelist, one of the most skilled and literate writers of detective fiction. Simenon is best known as the creator of the Paris police detective Inspector Maigret. He wrote 84 Maigret mysteries and 136 other novels, but he never wrote the 'big' novel that many critics demanded of him. Simenon's books have been printed in over 500 million editions and translated into 50 languages.

"'Truth never seems true. I don't mean only in literature or in painting. I won't remind you either of those Doric columns whose lines seem to us strictly perpendicular and which only give that impression because they are slightly curved. If they were straight, they'd look as if they were swelling, don't you see?'"
(from Maigret's Memoirs, 1950)

Simenon was born in Liège the son of an accountant for an insurance company. At the age of sixteen Simenon was forced by his father's ill health to abandon his studies, and in 1921 his mother died. He worked as a baker and a bookseller and started his career as a writer at a local newspaper, Gazette de Liège. This experience provided the young Simenon with the perfect apprenticeship. At the age of seventeen Simenon published his first novel. He joined a group of painters, writers, and dilettantes who called themselves La Caque (The Cask) and spent time drinking, experimenting with drugs, and discussing philosophy and art. He returned to the group and several of its members in the novel LE PENDU DE SAINT PHOLIEN (1931). In 1923 he married Règine Renchon, a young artist, whom he had met in Liège. The marriage ended in divorce.

In 1922 Simenon went to Paris, publishing short stories and popular novels under almost two dozen different pen names. He worked as an office clerk for a right-wing writer, and was a secretary to a wealthy aristocrat, the Marquis de Tracy. Simenon lived in France from 1923 to 1939, and between 1923 and 1933 Simenon produced more than 200 books of pulp fiction under several pseudonyms.

The social life of Paris provided the successful author innumerable sources of delight. In 1925 Simenon saw the legendary Josephine Baker dance in the famous show, La revue Nègre, and they became close friends. In 1928 and 1929 he sailed the rivers and canals of France, Holland, and Northern Europe, writing all the while. These journeys provided material for several of his novels, among them LE CHARRETIER DE LA 'PROVIDENCE' (1931). Throughout the 1930s Simenon lived in numerous houses, he cruised the Mediterranean and travelled in Lapland, Africa, and eastern Europe. Between the 1934 and 1935 he successfully completed a round-the-world cruise.

"I have never been able to write a novel about a country which I have known only as a tourist, and I have never travelled around the world with a notebook in hand, jotting down impressions."
(Preface in Simenon: An American Omnibus, 1967)

The first novel, which Simenon published under his own name, was PIETR-LE-LETTON (1930, The Strange Case of Peter the Lett), where he introduces Inspector Maigret. In this and the following books Simenon combines his moral objectivity and psychological insight to create characters that are wholly credible. Other series character, Jean Dollent, "the Little Doctor", appears in short stories, which have been collected in The Little Doctor (1943). In the early 1930s Simenon produced eighteen Maigret books, but abandoned the character for eight years. By the end of the 1930s he was the favourite author of such writers as André Gide, Ford Madox Ford (who mentions him in Vive Le Roy), and Robert Graves.

In 1939 Simenon was appointed commissioner for Belgian refugees at La Rochelle. When the German army invaded France, Simenon settled in Fontenay. During the years of occupation he continued writing and enjoyed success in the film business - under Nazi bureaucracy nine films based on his text were produced.

After the war Simenon found himself on the lists of collaborators. He spent the late 1940s and early 1950s in the United States. In New York Simenon met a bilingual young French-Canadian woman, Denyse Ouimet, with whom he had one of the great love affairs of his life. The relationship inspired the novel TROIS CHAMBRES Á MANHATTAN (1946). He married Denise in 1949 and moved with his new family to Connecticut, where he lived for the next five years. During this period he wrote several novels with an American background. Belle (1954) is a story of murder in a small Connecticut community. The Brothers Rico (1954) is a Mafia story and The Hitchhiker (1955) explores a battle of wills between husband and wife.

  "Call me Mike."
   But there was no mistake about it. This was no license to get chummy with him. It applied to the respectful familiarity, which in certain groups, in certain small towns, surrounds those of importance.
   He looked like a politician, a state senator, or a mayor, or like someone who bosses the political machine and makes judges and sheriffs alike. He could have played any role of these parts in the movies, especially in a Western, he knew, and it was obvious that it pleased him, that he kept polishing up the resemblance.
   "How about a highball?" he proposed, pointing at the bottle.
   "I never drink."
(from The Brothers Rico)

Simenon's semi-autobiographic, naturalistic PEDIGREE (1948) is exceptionally long compared to his novels, over five hundred pages. Simenon wrote the book after a doctor misread an x-ray and told him that he had less than two years to live. The book was meant for his young son so that he would be able to know his father when he grew up. However, Simenon still had 41 years of his life ahead of him.

In 1955 Simenon returned to Europe and settled in Lausanne, Switzerland. Beneath the illusion of a happy household, Simenon's marriage was deteriorating and his family disintegrating. In 1964 Denise entered a psychiatric clinic never returning to Epalinges, their home. Her bitter memoir of the marriage, Un Oiseau pour le chat, was published in 1978. Simenon's daughter Marie-Jo began the first of several psychiatric treatments in 1966, but eventually in 1978 she committed suicide. In MÉMOIRES INTIMES I-II (1981) Simenon blamed Denise for her death.

In 1961 Simenon begun a relationship with Teresa Sburelin, who became something like his official companion. The last Maigret, MAIGRET ET MONSIEUR CHARLES, was published in 1972, and next year Simenon announced his retirement. In the following years he only published non-fiction of an autobiographical nature. Memoir MÉMOIRES INTIMES I-II appeared in 1981. In his autobiography QUAND J'ÉTAIS VIEUX (1971, When I Was Old) Simenon claims to have had sex with more than twenty thousand different women. LETTRE À MA MÈRE (1974) examines his relationship to his mother. Simenon died in Lausanne, on September 4, 1989. He left instructions at his death that his body be cremated without any ceremony and that his ashes, mingled with his beloved daughter's, be scattered beneath a huge tree in the back garden of his last house in Lausanne.

The Maigret novels focus on the circumstances and stresses that compel one person to murder another. They are written in a sparse, undecorated style. Simenon described them as sketches comparable to the sort of things a painter does for his pleasure or for preliminary studies. The production of 115 'Simenons', short, intense psychological analyses of modern man, started with LE RELAIS D'ALSACE (1931, The Man from Everywhere). Among these works is his most Dostoyevskyan tale L'HOMME QUI REGARDAIT PASSER LES TRAINS (1938, The Man Who Watched the Trains Go By), which centres on the theme of the sense of guilt - as do many of his stories. Almost all Simenons involve acts of violence. They deal with characters from all social classes, and are set in many different countries, bringing the often-tragic events and suffering of the characters closer to the world of the reader. Simenon's optimism and joy in life is seen in such novels as LE PETIT SAINT (1965, The Little Saint) and LE PRÉSIDENT (1958, The Premier).

Maigret's career: Maigret is the son of a farmer near Moulins. He came to Paris as a young man originally to study medicine. He joined the police instead, and rose from uniformed bicycle patrolman to superintendent. His wife Louise is a fine cook, who often prepares heavy, hearty peasant fare - cassoulet, calves' liver, and his favourite, choucroute. They live in an apartment on the Boulevard Richard-Lenoir. Maigret's office is at the Quai des Orfévres, where sandwiches and beer are delivered during his interrogations. During his investigations Maigret consumes quantities of wine, endless glasses of beer, and Calvados. Heavy drinking is combines with pipe smoking. - Other police detectives in Maigret novels: Lucas, Janvier, Lapointe, Torrence. - Best Maigret film: Maigret tend un piége, 1957 (dir. by Jean Delannoy, with Jean Gabin as Maigret and Annie Girandot) - see more information below. - Television Maigrets: Rupert Davies (1970) and Richard Harris (1988), Michael Gambon (1992) in Britain, Heinz Rühmann in Germany, Jan Teuling in Holland, Gino Cervi in Italy, Boris Tenin in Russia, Kinya Aikawa in Japan, Jean Richard and Bruno Cremer in France - See also: Lawrence Treat and modern police procedural novel.

For further reading: The Art of Simenon by T. Narjerac (1952); Simenon in Court by R. Raymond (1963); Simenon by B. de Fallois (1971, rev. ed.); Simenon by F. Lacassin and G. Sigaux (1973); Georges Simenon by T. Young (1976); Georges Simenon by F.F. Becker (1977); Simenon's Paris by F. Frank (1983); Georges Simenon, a Critical Biography by S. Erskin (1987); The Man Who Wasn't Maigret by P. Marnham (1992); Simenon: A Biography by Pierre Assouline (1997)

Selected Maigret films:

• LA NUITDU CARREFOUR, 1932 - MAIGRET AT THE CROSSROADS/THE CROSSROADS MURDER, dir. by Jean Renoir - adapted from the novel of the same title (1931)
• LA CHIEN JAUNE, 1932 - A FACE FOR A CLUE, dir. by Jean Tarride - adapted from the novel of the same title (1931)
• LA TÊTE D'UN HOMME, 1933 - A BATTLE OF NERVES, dir. by Julien Duvivier - adapted from the novel of the same title (1931)
• PICPUS, 1943 - TO ANY LENGHTS, dir. by Richard Pottier - adapted from the collection Signé Picpus (1944)
• CÉCILE EST MORTE, 1944 - MAIGRET AND THE SPINSTER, dir. by Maurice Tourneur - adapted from the story of the same title (1942)
• LES CAVES DU MAJESTIC, 1945 - MAIGRET AND THE HOTEL MAJESTIC, dir. by Richard Potter - adapted from the story of the same title (1942)
• MAN ON THE EIFFEL TOWER, dir. by Burgess Meredith - based on La Tète d'un homme (1931)
• BRELAN D'AS, 1952, dir. by Henri Verneuil - partly based on Le Témoignage de l'enfant de choeur in the collection Maigret et l'inspecteur malchanceux - puis malgracieux (1947)
• MAIGRET MÈNE L'ENQUÊTE, 1955 - MAIGRET AND THE SPINSTER, dir. by Stany Cordier - partly based on Cécile est morte in the collection Maigret revient (1942)
• MAIGRET TEND UN PIÈGE, 1958 - MAIGRET SETS A TRAP - dir. by Jean Delannoy - adapted from the novel of the same title (1955)
• MAIGRET DIRIGE L'ENQUÊTE (tv), 1955, dir. by Stanley Cordier
• MAIGRET ET L'AFFAIRE SAINT-FIACRE, 1959 - THE SAINT-FIACRE AFFAIR / MAIGRET GOES HOME, dir. by Jean Delannoy - adapted from L'Affaire Saint-Fiacre (1932)
• MAIGRET VOIT ROUGE, 1963 - MAIGRET AND THE GANGSTERS/INSPECTOR MAIGRET AND THE KILLERS, dir. by Gilles Grangier - adapted from Maigret, Lognon et les gangsters (1952)
• MAIGRET À PIGALLE, 1966, dir. by Mario Landi, starring Gino Cervi
• MAIGRET UND SEIN GRÖSSTER FALL, 1966 dir. by Alfred Weidenmann, starring Heinz Rühmann
• LA CHIEN JAUNE (tv), 1968, dir. by Claude Barma, starring Henry Czarniak
• MAIGRET ET L'HOMME DU BANC (tv), 1973, dir. by René Lucot, starring Jean Richard
• MAIGRET EN MEUBLÉ (tv), 1972
• MAIGRET HÉSITE (tv), 1975
• MAIGRETET LES GANGSTERS (tv), 1977
• LIBERTY BAR (tv), 1979
• MAIGRET Á VICHY (tv), 1984
• MAIGRET ET LE MARCHAND (tv)
• MAIGRET (tv), 1988, dir. by Paul Lynch, starring Richard Harris

First published novel: AU PONT DES ARCHES, (1920)
LA NUITDU CARREFOUR, (1932)