Nicolas Flamel - in Popular Culture

In Popular Culture

• Flamel is mentioned as Claude Frollo's scientific inspiration in Victor Hugo's novel The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1831). Frollo seems to be obsessed with Flamel's work with the Philosopher's Stone.
• Flamel is the subject of Michael Roberts's poem "Nicholas Flamel", collected in These Our Matins (1930).
• Flamel has been alleged to be the eighth Grand Master of the Priory of Sion (1398–1418) as part of a 1960s intrigue where his name was planted in the French National Library in the Dossiers Secrets. This resulted in him being mentioned in the 1982 pseudohistory book The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, Umberto Eco's 1988 novel Foucault's Pendulum, and Dan Brown's 2003 novel, The Da Vinci Code. Many of the names of "Grand Masters" were evidently chosen for some sort of connection with alchemy.
• Nicolas and his wife Perenelle Flamel are important characters mentioned in the Indiana Jones story Indiana Jones and the Philosopher's Stone (1995) by Max McCoy.
• Flamel is mentioned throughout Fullmetal Alchemist (manga 2001, television 2003 and 2009) as the author of alchemic books and the originator of the Philosopher's Stone legend. The Flamel Cross and the Philosopher's Stone are also seen in the series, which is based on transmutations and the finding of the Philosopher's Stone.
• Nicolas Flamel is significant to the plot of J. K. Rowling's first Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (1997). In the novel Flamel and his wife are still alive in the early 1990s (when the stories are based), having gained immortality from the eponymous Philosopher's Stone.
• The concept album Grand Materia (2005) by the Swedish metal band Morgana Lefay is about Nicolas Flamel, his life, and how he made the Philosopher's Stone.
• Nicholas and his wife are central characters in Michael Scott's series of six fantasy novels, The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel, started in 2007.