Maigret et l’affaire Nahour

Commissaire Maigret first appeared in four popular novels that Simenon published under the pseudonyms Georges Sim or Christian Brulls. These novels are excluded from the official “Maigret” cycle because Simenon himself drew a distinction — notably in 1975, a period when he fiercely suppressed any work predating 1931 — between his illegitimate output (books published under pseudonyms) and his acknowledged body of work (books published under his own name).

The official cycle comprises 75 novels, 4 collections of short stories and 28 stories published in periodicals. Fifty of these novels were published by Presses de la Cité, whose covers went through four different designs. Starting with Maigret voyage (published in December 1957), the design was standardized: a uniform colored background featuring the author’s silhouette in profile, wearing a hat and smoking a pipe, with smoke rings extending onto the front cover and containing the author’s name and the title. All titles in this series were issued in a numbered first edition printed on fine paper, with the deluxe and ordinary printings sharing the same achevé d’imprimer.