The Labyrinth

by Paul Hervieu

A gripping psychological thriller, 'The Labyrinth' takes readers on a dark and twisted journey into the mind of a murderer. Full of unexpected twists and turns, this book is sure to keep you on the edge of your seat. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

172 pages, Hardcover

First published August 21, 2015

About the author

He was born Paul-Ernest Hervieu, into a wealthy upper-middle-class family. He studied law, but sought also had contact with writers like Leconte de Lisle, Paul Verlaine and Alphonse Daudet. After graduating in 1877, he first practiced in a law firm, in 1879 qualified for the diplomatic service, and was posted in the French Embassy in Mexico. But he preferred to remain in France, where he attended fashionable literary salons, and the acquaintance of artists and writers such as Marcel Proust, Paul Bourget, Henri Meilhac, Ludovic Halévy, Guy de Maupassant and Edgar Degas. On the recommendation of his friend Octave Mirbeau, he tried his hand as a journalist.
Hervieu was called to the bar in 1877, and, after serving some time in the office of the president of the council, he qualified for the diplomatic service, but resigned on his nomination in 1881 to a secretaryship in the French legation in Mexico.
He contributed novels, tales and essays to the chief Parisian papers and reviews, and published a series of clever novels, including L'Inconnue (1887), Flirt (1890), L'Exorcisée (1891), Peints par eux-mêmes (1893), an ironic study written in the form of letters, and L'Armature (1895), dramatized in 1905 by Eugène Brieux.
Hervieu's plays are built upon a severely logical method, the mechanism of which is sometimes so evident as to destroy the necessary sense of illusion. The closing words of La Course du flambeau (1901) "Pour ma fille, j'ai tué ma mère" (For my daughter, I killed my mother), are an example of his selection of a plot representing an extreme theory. The riddle in L'Énigme (1901) (staged at Wyndham's Theatre, London, 1 March 1902, as Caesar's Wife) is, however, worked out with great art, and Le Dédale (1903), dealing with the obstacles to the remarriage of a divorced woman, is reckoned among the masterpieces of the modern French stage.
He was elected to the French Academy in 1900 and died in 1915 at age 57 in Paris, France, and was interred in its Passy Cemetery.

Reviews

[Sweetie G. · Rating 5 out of 5]

maybe my favorite piece of literature ever. what i would give to see this performed or even to hear the audio from an actual performance. even in a language i can't understand.