As they disrupted not only territorial organization but also conceptions of the city and urbanity, the Parisian banlieues have not left literature indifferent. This study analyzes the appearance of the banlieues in the French novel between 1820 and 1950. At the beginning of the 19th century, writers brought the city into the realm of literature, as space, character and text: how did they, a century later, perceive and write about the suburbs?