He was a prolific novelist, producing in the space of twenty years some seventy-three volumes, and is best remembered today for his creation of the fictional character of Rocambole.

[2] Ponson du Terrail's early works squarely belonged to the Gothic novel genre: his La Baronne Trépassée (1852) was a murky Ann Radcliffe-like tale of revenge in the macabre surroundings of 18th-century Germany Black Forest.

ISBN 978-1-61227-175-0 When Ponson du Terrail embarked in 1857 on writing the first novel of the Rocambole series, L'Héritage Mystérieux (also known as Les Drames de Paris), for the daily newspaper La Patrie, he merely meant to copy the success of Eugène Sue's best-selling Les Mystères de Paris.

Rocambole became a huge success, providing a constant and considerable source of revenue to Ponson du Terrail, who continued churning out his adventures.

Ponson fled from Paris to his country estate near Orléans, where he gathered a group of like-minded companions and began a guerilla-style warfare, not unlike what Rocambole himself would have done.