Leo Saint-Clair, alias the Nyctalope, was created in 1911 by Jean de La Hire, one of France's most prolific serial writers. Gifted with night vision, hypnotic powers and an artificial heart, Saint-Clair is a fearless hero who battles colorful super-villains. His adventures, which spanned 30 years, created a template that was later adopted by such pulp heroes as Doc Savage (1933), before providing the core mythology of American comic books. In The Nyctalope on Mars (1911), Leo faces the megalomaniacal Oxus, master of the secret society of the Fifteen, who is plotting to conquer Earth from his secret base on Mars. After defeating the Fifteen, the Nyctalope must then face an ever more fearsome foe: H. G. Wells' Martians. "The Nyctalope on Mars predicted the course that popular fiction was to follow in the next 50 years." Brian Stableford.

Leo Saint-Clair, alias the Nyctalope, was created in 1911 by Jean de La Hire, one of France's most prolific writer of adventure serials. Gifted with night vision, hypnotic powers, extraordinary senses and an artificial heart, Saint-Clair is a fearless adventurer who battles with a gallery of colorful super-villains. His adventures, which spanned 30 years, created a template that was later adopted by such pulp heroes as Doc Savage (1933), before providing the core mythology of American comic books. In Lucifer (1921), his second appearance and possibly his greatest battle, the Nyctalope faces Baron Glô von Warteck, a.k.a. Lucifer, whose tremendous hypnotic powers, amplified by his diabolical "teledynamo," threatens to enslave the world.

Night of the Nyctalope is a collection of 17 stories featuring Leo Saint-Clair, France's premier pulp superhero from the 1920s and 1930s. The title piece is a translation of a rare original tale published in 1944 by the character's creator, Jean de La Hire, in which Leo saves a young woman from the clutches of an evil sorcerer in Occupied Paris. Sixteen other stories, all written especially for this volume, offer more exciting adventures spanning over a century, from Leo's first exploits against dark mystic powers in 1900 Paris, his adventures as an explorer in darkest Africa before WWI, his secret missions on Earth and on Mars during the Great War, his encounter with Dracula before the Fall of Berlin, to his very recent visit at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena...

In Jean de La Hire's original 1943 novel, The King of the Night, translated by Brian Stableford, the Nyctalope travels to Rhea, a wandering planetoid inhabited by two warring races of ape-men and bat-men, and forces the two species to make peace. In its all-new sequel, Return of the Nyctalope, by Jean-Marc & Randy Lofficier, the Nyctalope returns to Rhea as it is about to leave the Solar System, and comes to grips with his own past while charting out a bold map for the future of Humanity. Leo Saint-Clair, alias the Nyctalope, was created in 1911 by Jean de La Hire, one of France's most prolific serial writers. Gifted with night vision, hypnotic powers and an artificial heart, Saint-Clair was a fearless hero who battled a gallery of colorful super-villains. His adventures, which spanned 30 years, created a template that was later adopted by other pulp and comic-book heroes, and continue today in new stories, of which this is the most recent.

Jean de La Hire (1878-1956) fut, en son temps, l'un des romanciers les plus de populaires de France, écrivant plus de cent livres par an, certains tirés à 100.000 exemplaires, parcourant la France dans sa voiture de sport signant des autographes. Le personnage de Léo Saint-Clair, Le Nyctalope, qu'il créa en 1910, est, avec sa vue surhumaine, son cœur artificiel, ses pouvoirs occultes et son superpatriotisme le premier super-héros de la fiction populaire. Cet essai d'Emmanuel Gorlier, amplement illustré de reproductions de couvertures et d'illustrations d'époque, rend hommage à et révèle tous les secrets de cet auteur et de cette prodigieuse saga littéraire, oubliée aujourd'hui. Le livre inclut un court roman de Jean de La Hire paru en journal en 1942 et jamais réédité depuis, un article de Brian Stableford sur Le Mystère des XV et une nouvelle inédite d'Emmanuel Gorlier. TABLE DES MATIERES : • Introduction : Qui est le Nyctalope ? • Biographie de Jean de la Hire • Bibliographie du Nyctalope • Galerie de couvertures • Résumés critiques des Œuvres • Biographie du Nyctalope • Principaux personnages du cycle • Le Nyctalope et son époque • Les super-héros selon Jean de La Hire • Documents: \- Brian Stableford : Préface et postface à l'édition américaine du Mystère des XV \- Jean de La Hire : L'Enfant Perdu \- Jean-Marc Lofficier : Marguerite \- Roman Leary : Le Cœur d'un homme \- Emmanuel Gorlier : Crépuscule (inédit)

A mysterious criminal mastermind shoots Engineer Pierre Saint-Clair and steals his plans for a revolutionary invention. His son, Leo, and a band of young adventurers, pursue the villains, a gang of international anarchists, to Switzerland, where he is captured and murdered. But like a phoenix, he rises from the dead, having gained the power to see in the dark, and sporting a heart made of metal and rubber, powered by electro-magnets. 20-year-old Leo Saint-Clair has now become-the superheroic Nyctalope! Enter the Nyctalope, written in 1933, is the origin story of the greatest of all French pulp heroes, created in 1911 by prolific writer Jean de La Hire. It is presented here with three additional short stories also featuring the Nyctalope.

The Nyctalope Steps In is a collection of 15 stories featuring France's premier pulp superhero from the 1920s and 1930s. The title piece is a translation of a rare tale serialized in a regional newspaper in 1942, the last story ever written by the character's creator, Jean de La Hire, in which his hero comes to terms with France's occupation by the Nazis. Fourteen other stories, eight of which were especially written for this volume, offer more exciting adventures from the Nyctalope's secret origins, lost in the mists of time, to his excursions into the future, from the blood-drenched trenches of World War I to the far-off planet Mars. Also included in this book is a complete Nyctalope chronology by Emmanuel Gorlier.