The Mystery of the Yellow Room

infobox Book |
name = The Mystery of the Yellow Room
title_orig = Le mystère de la chambre jaune
translator =


image_caption = Cover of the 1908 first edition
author = Gaston Leroux
illustrator =
cover_artist =
country = France
language = French
series = Joseph Rouletabille
genre = Mystery fiction
publisher = "L'Illustration" (in serial)
Editions Pierre Lafitte (book)
release_date = 1907 in serial
January 1908 in book form
media_type = Print (Hardcover and Paperback), Audiobook
pages = 236 (1998 paperback)
isbn = ISBN NA (orig.) ISBN 1-873982-38-0 (1998 paperback)
preceded_by =
followed_by = The Perfume of the Lady in Black

"The Mystery of the Yellow Room: Extraordinary Adventures of Joseph Rouletabille, Reporter" (in French "Le mystère de la chambre jaune") is one of the first locked room mystery crime fiction novels (such that a murder or other crime is apparently committed under impossible circumstances). It is 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 dénouement. 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, has his detective Dr Gideon Fell declare this as the 'best detective tale ever written' in his 1935 novel "The Hollow Man"; it was voted the third best locked room mystery of all timeFact|date=June 2008.

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 du Glandier, located in the forest, near the road leading to Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois and Montlhéry. The daughter of a famous scientist is found the victim of attempted murder. The strange thing is the room is locked from the inside and there are no other ways in. A police detective is involved but the young journalist Joseph Rouletabille is more concerned with unraveling the mystery by use of reasoning and logic.

Plot summary

Miss Stangerson is found severely injured, attacked 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.

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"
*Professor Stangerson – the scientist, owner of "Chateau du Glandier"
*Miss Stangerson – daughter of a famous scientist, the victim
*"Daddy" Jacques – an old servant in the Stangerson family

Film, TV or theatrical adaptations

*imdb title | id=0010499 | title=The Mystery of the Yellow Room (1919)
*imdb title | id=0021168 | title=Mystère de la chambre jaune, Le (1930)
*imdb title | id=0198763 | title=El misterio del cuarto amarillo (1947)
*imdb title | id=0197716 | title=Mystère de la chambre jaune, Le (1949)
*imdb title | id=0356922 | title=Mystère de la chambre jaune, Le (2003)

Release details

*1907, France, "L'illustration", Pub date ? September 1907—? November 1907, magazine serial (in French)
*1908, France, Editions Jacques Lafitte (ISBN NA), Pub date ? ? 1908, hardback (First edition, in French)
*1934, UK, Oxford University Press (ISBN 0-19-832345-X), Pub date ? December 1934, paperback (in French)
*1977, UK, Dover Publications (ISBN 0-486-23460-6), Pub date ? April 1977, paperback
*1978, UK, Remploy (ISBN 0-7066-0759-7), Pub date 25 August 1978, hardback
*1996, USA, Books on Tape (ISBN 5-557-12771-2), Pub date ? January 1996, audio book (Cassette)
*1996, USA, Buccaneer Books (ISBN 0-89966-141-6), Pub date ? June 1996, hardback (Library binding)
*1997, UK, Dedalus Ltd (ISBN 1-873982-38-0), Pub date 10 August 1997, paperback
*2002, USA, Indypublish.com (ISBN 1-4043-2003-2), Pub date 1 August 2002, paperback
*2002, USA, Indypublish.com (ISBN 1-4043-2002-4), Pub date 1 August 2002, hardback
*2004, UK, Thorndike Press (ISBN 0-7862-6991-X), Pub date 2 Nov 2004, hardback
*2005, USA, Kessinger Publishing (ISBN 0-7661-9366-7), Pub date 1 April 2005, paperback
*2006, UK, Blackstone Audiobooks (ISBN 0-7861-7523-0), Pub date ? April 2006, audio book (MP3 CD)
*2006, UK, Dover Publications (ISBN 0-486-44928-9), Pub date 7 April 2006, paperback

ee also

* Whodunit

External links

*
* [http://www.rouletabille.perso.cegetel.net L'univers de Joseph Rouletabille] (in French)