Cover illustration: “Diderot lisant Le Pigeon blanc dans le salon du baron d’Holbach.” Le Voleur illustré: cabinet de lecture universel, 11 September 1857. Courtesy: Ville de Paris/Bibliothèque des Littératures policières de la Ville de Paris
The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available online at
LC record available at
Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download:
ISSN 0920-8607
ISBN 978-90-04-43578-0 (hardback)
ISBN 978-90-04-51684-7 (e-book)
Copyright 2022 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands.
Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Hotei, Brill Schöningh, Brill Fink, Brill mentis, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Böhlau and V&R unipress.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Requests for re-use and/or translations must be addressed to Koninklijke Brill NV via
This book is printed on acid-free paper and produced in a sustainable manner.