Sue's naval experiences supplied much of the material for his first novels,
Kernock le pirate (1830),
Atar-Gull (1831),
La Salamandre (1832),
La Coucaratcha (1832–1834), and others, written at the height of the
Romantic movement of 1830. In the quasi-historical style he wrote
Jean Cavalier, ou Les Fanatiques des Cevennes (1840) and
Latréaumont (1837). His
Mathilde (1841) contains the first known expression of the popular proverb "
La vengeance se mange très-bien froide", also constituting the first known English usage of the proverb later expressed in English as
"Revenge is a dish best served cold". He was strongly affected by the
socialist ideas of the day, and these prompted his most famous works, the
anti-Catholic novels:
The Mysteries of Paris (
Les Mystères de Paris) (published in
Journal des débats from 19 June 1842 until 15 October 1843) and
The Wandering Jew (
Le Juif errant; 1844–1845), which were among the most popular specimens of the
serial novel.
The Wandering Jew is a
Gothic novel depicting the titular character in conflict with the villain, a murderous
Jesuit named Rodin. Some of Sue's books, among them
The Wandering Jew and
The Mysteries of Paris, were dramatized by himself, usually in collaboration with others. His period of greatest success and popularity coincided with that of
Alexandre Dumas, with whom he has been compared. According to
Umberto Eco, parts of Sue's book
Les Mystères du peuple served as a source for
Maurice Joly in his 1864 work
Dialogue in Hell Between Machiavelli and Montesquieu, a book attacking
Napoleon III and his political ambitions. The two are depicted in
Will Eisner's cartoon book
The Plot, co-authored with Eco. == Political career ==