Jules Maigret (), or simply Maigret, is a fictional French police detective, a commissaire ("commissioner") of the Paris Brigade Criminelle (Direction Régionale de la Police Judiciaire de Paris:36, Quai des Orfèvres), created by writer Georges Simenon. The character's full name is Jules Amédée François Maigret.
Between 1931 and 1972, 75 novels and 28 short stories about Maigret were published, starting with Pietr-le-Letton ("The Strange Case of Peter the Lett") and concluding with Maigret et Monsieur Charles ("Maigret and Monsieur Charles"). With the creation of Maigret, Simenon renewed the detective novel-genre. The novels and stories have been translated into more than 50 languages.
The Maigret stories have also received numerous film, television and radio adaptations. Penguin Books published new translations of 75 books in the series over as many months; the project was begun in November 2013 by translators David Bellos, Anthea Bell, and Ros Schwartz.
Character
Creation
The character of Maigret was invented by Simenon while drinking in a cafe and imagining a Parisian policeman: "a large powerfully built gentleman...a pipe, a bowler hat, a thick overcoat." Maigret was reputed to be based on , an actual French detective although Simenon himself variously claimed not to remember the inspiration or that Maigret was influenced by Simenon's own father.
Biographers Thomas Narcejac and Fenton Bresler both see Simenon himself in his creation.
Description
Maigret is described as a large, broad-shouldered man – he is gruff but patient and fair.
Recurring characters in the series include Maigret's wife Louise (usually referred to simply as Madame Maigret) and in particular "The Faithful Four", a group consisting of his four loyal police colleagues (Sgt./Inspector Lucas, Janvier, Lapointe, and Torrence). Other prominent characters include police surgeon Dr. Paul and the Examining Magistrate, Judge Coméliau, who alternates between being a help and a hindrance to Maigret.
Maigret doesn't like his first name being used and prefers to be simply called "Maigret". Even Maigret's wife largely restricts herself to calling him "Maigret", only calling him by his first name a handful of times.
In most novels, Maigret is aged around 45 to 55 years. There are contradictive clues to his year of birth. In Monsieur Gallet, décédé, which takes place in 1930, Maigret is described as 45, indicating 1885 as his year of birth. In another novel La première enquete de Maigret, where the investigation takes place in 1913, the author states that Maigret is 26, which establish his year of birth as 1887. In the 1932 novel L'affaire Saint-Fiacre, Maigret is 42, which would mean he was born in 1890, assuming that Maigret is contemporary to the year the novel was written.
Maigret began working as a police man in Paris in his twenties. At the age of 30 he entered the Homicide Squad and later, nearing his forties, became chief inspector of the squad. It is mentioned that Maigret retired when he would be in his mid-fifties, which gives him over 30 years of experience in the police.
He was from the village of Saint-Fiacre in the Allier Department, where his father Evariste Maigret was the bailiff for the local landowner; see Simenon's novel Maigret's Failure (Un échec de Maigret), about a school bully and contemporary, "Fatty" Ferdinand Fumal from the same village.
Characteristics
Maigret wears a thick overcoat, a bowler hat and frequently smokes a tobacco pipe. He is described to be tall with a heavy weight, and to have broad shoulders, big hands, a thick face, thick hair, thick eyebrows and bright eyes of a "greenish gray" colour. He has a heavy beard, and shaves every morning.
In his investigations, Maigret's method is to put himself in another persons place to search for the reason, and understand why, the crime was committed, rather than just finding out whodunit. He is described as a character with an extraordinary humanity.
List of novels
List of Maigret novels with date of French-language publication as well as the Penguin reissue dates and titles.
List of short stories
List of Maigret short stories by date of first publication in French.
In other media
Audiobooks
Following the Penguin reissue of the 75 novels, actor Gareth Armstrong started recording each for Audible. recordings took one day per book. By September 2015 he had recorded 25 of them. He has since completed all 75 recordings.