Writing a book about a genius — when you are not one — is a daunting process. In order to attempt to do justice to a mind like Diderot’s, I have shamelessly called upon the expertise of numerous friends and colleagues. Among those who engaged most deeply with the project, I would first like to thank Patrick Graille, with whom I have collaborated fruitfully for twenty years on virtually everything I have ever written. Other generous friends who spent a lot of time helping me think through the book include Sophie Audidière, Catherine Chiabaut, John Eigenauer, Marie Leca-Tsiomis, Alex Lee, David Mayo, Anne and Walter Mayo, Kelsey Rubin-Detlev, and Caroline Warman. I would also like to thank the attentive team at Other Press who engaged with the manuscript, particularly Yvonne Cárdenas, Julie Fry, Alexandra Poreda, and Walter Havighurst. Finally, I would like to thank my editor, friend, and mentor at the press, Judith Gurewich, who proposed that I write this book in the first place. This book would not be the same without her.
I am also indebted to a whole group of other friends and colleagues. Some read portions of the manuscript or talked to me about what they expected from the genre of biography; still others suggested how I might structure such a curious and full life. Bearing these many and varied contributions in mind, I would like to recognize Nadja Aksamija, Steve Angle, Marco Aresu, Amy Bloom, Emmanuel Boussuge, Jeffrey Burson, Andrew Clark, Lisa Cohen, Nicholas Cronk, Carolyn Curran, Claire Curran, Clayton Curran, Michel Delon, Jane Dieckmann, Colas Duflo, Anne Duthoit, Dan Edelstein, Deren Ertas, Pierre Franz, Alden Gordon, Violette Graille, Arthur Halliday, Paul Halliday, Thierry Hoquet, Joyce Jacobsen, Katherine Kuenzli, Stéphane Lojkine, Christine Lalande, Michael Maglaras, John C. O’Neal, Murielle Perrier, Michael Roth, J. B. Shank, Courtney Weiss Smith, Victoria Smolkin, Joanna Stalnaker, Gerhardt Stenger, Suzy Taraba, Terry Templeton, Sawyer Tennant, Helen Thomson, Cassie and Jean-Baptiste Toulouse, Kari Weil, and Stephanie Weiner. Many more of my colleagues in the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures have also been wonderful interlocutors during this process.
Over the four years that I wrote this book, I have also met (and talked on the phone) with dozens of kind and patient archivists, librarians, and curators. Although there are too many people to thank individually here, I would notheless like to express my gratitude to colleagues at the Musées d’art et d’histoire, Geneva; the Bibliothèque de l’Assemblée nationale; the Bibliothèque nationale de France; Brown University Libraries; the Musée Carnavalet; the Musée Condé; the Musée Girodet; the Metropolitan Museum of Art; the McCain Library and Archives at the University of Southern Mississippi; Princeton University Libraries; the Musée Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Montmorency; Wesleyan University Special Collections and Archives; the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore; the Wellcome Library; Williams College Libraries; and Yale University Libraries (particularly the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library).
I must also thank the people of Langres. One of the most rewarding aspects of writing this book was getting to know the city of Diderot’s birth, along with the people who, among their many other tasks, are charged with preserving the writer’s legacy. I would like, first, to express my gratitude to David Covelli (Langres’s Responsable du Service Patrimoine) for his intellectual generosity, logistical support, private tours, and especially helping me locate key images for the book. I also want to thank the great historian of Langres, Georges Viard, for making time to meet with me. And finally, I am indebted to Olivier Caumont, director of Langres’s Museum of the Enlightenment, for providing numerous illustrations (and great conversation related to Diderot). Other kind Langrois include Jean-François Feurtriez of the Tourist Bureau and Yves Chevalier, the bighearted owner of the Hôtel du Cheval Blanc and the excellent Restaurant Diderot.
Projects like these, which require substantial travel, are really not possible without institutional or foundation support. I have been lucky to have had both. Initial research was made possible by a semester-long National Endowment for the Humanities Public Scholars grant. Later stages of the book were made possible by Wesleyan University, which not only granted me a yearlong sabbatical, but summer travel funds.
Lastly, I want to thank my wife Jennifer for her patience, terrific sense of humor, and the brilliant insight she brought to this project.