ON TOUR WITH DEAD WRITERS: Designing Author

by Rogue Women Writers | Jul 8, 2025 | On Tour With Dead Writers

By ZJ Czupor

ZJ Czupor‘s On Tour with Dead Writers brings us clues to a mystery author each second Tuesday of the month. Dust off your investigative skills and send your answer to mysteryminutecontest@gmail.com by the 20th of the month. From the correct responses, one will be randomly drawn to win a copy of Not Who We Expected by Lisa Black!

chateau designed by a famous dead writer — This 18^th century chateau was designed and built by a famous author on the outskirts of Paris, France. Nearly 600 people descended on the house-warming party to admire the place. A few months later, the author went bankrupt and had to sell his dream home. Fortunately, the chateau was restored, is now a museum, and is open to the public.
Photo credit: I, JPGO, Wikimedia.org

In the 19^th century, this prolific writer was the most popular French author and did so without earning any literary awards.

He had a meager self-taught education and as a young man devoured books. He worked as a notary and as secretary to the Duke of Orleans, who later became French King Louis Philippe (1773-1850) during the 1830 revolution. Louis Phillipe 1 was the last French monarch to bear the title “King.” He abdicated his throne during the revolution.

This famous author wrote essays, shorts stories, plays, travelogues, and novels. He also penned a fantasy novel considered to be one of the earliest werewolf-themed books.

His plays were both comedies and dramas and were so successful that he was able to write full-time. In addition to his adventure novels, he authored several children’s stories and a culinary dictionary. He also edited the L’Indipendente, a literary and political journal published in French and Italian along with several other magazines he founded in which he wrote weekly.

His stories have been translated into almost a hundred languages and have inspired more than 200 films.

Despite his popularity and riches, he went bankrupt building a chateau outside of Paris, while living a lavish lifestyle and accommodating expenses for forty mistresses. It was at this chateau that the author spent long hours writing and entertaining. But when he became heavily in debt, he fled to Belgium and later Russia to avoid his creditors.

His contemporaries called him talkative, charming and gregarious. A writer by day and Don Juan by night.

Who was this famous author?

Did you guess Georges Simenon last month? Renée in Florida won Not Who We Expected by Lisa Black.

Subscribe to our Newsletter to receive an extra clue at the beginning of each month as well as automatic entry to several more monthly Giveaways and first looks at weekly blogs!

Contest rules:
1. All US addresses are eligible to win.
2. Each month’s prize will be a book written by one of the Rogues and donated by that author.
3. All subscribers who email us with the correct answer before the 20th will be entered in a drawing to win.

Z.J. Czupor’s new murder mystery, When The Fog Rises, is published at zjames.substack.com. He’s also the author of the thriller Cut Right Through Me (also at Substack) and a book of poetry THE BIG WEIRD: Haikus in Times of Pandemic and Chaos. Z.J. is immediate past president of Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers and is an active member of Mystery Writers of America and International Thriller Writers. He is represented by Terrie Wolf, founder and owner of AKA Literary Management.