The Mystery of the Yellow Room

The Mystery of the Yellow Room is a locked-room mystery novel by the French writer Gaston Leroux, serialized in the periodical L'Illustration from September to November 1907 under the French title Le mystere de la chambre jaune before appearing in book form in 1908. It introduces Joseph Rouletabille, a young journalist and amateur detective, who investigates an apparently impossible attack on a woman found alone in a locked room at the Chateau du Glandier, narrated through the perspective of his friend Jean Sainclair and accompanied by detailed diagrams and floor plans that invite the reader to solve the puzzle alongside him. Widely regarded as one of the earliest and most influential locked-room mysteries, the novel established a template that later writers in the genre drew on directly, and it was followed by a 1908 sequel, The Perfume of the Lady in Black, reuniting several of its characters.