This book opens the series of novels by Ponson du Terrail about the adventures of Rocambole. The series, a true epic of adventure novels, consists of seven installments: “Parisian Dramas,” “The Adventures of Rocambole,” “Rocambole Returned from the Dead,” “The Last Word about Rocambole,” “London Poverty,” “Rocambole in Prison,” and “The Rope of the Hanged Man.”
The hero is a criminal, the leader of the gang of “Czerwonne Valets” (Red Jacks). In prison, Rocambole undergoes an inner transformation. Elusive, everywhere, gifted with extraordinary dexterity and ingenuity, Rocambole possesses nobility in the spirit of the heroes of Dumas the father.
In 1993, a TV series about Rocambole was made—“The Curse of Duran.”