Novembre 1886, Paris. Giacomo Trabelli, comte désabusé, attend sa dernière maîtresse : la mort. Dans ce roman audacieux, Jean-Louis Dubut de Laforest explore les bas-fonds et les excès de la société parisienne, mêlant érotisme.

Disproportionately remembered as a hellfire-and-brimstone Puritan preacher on the basis of the excessively-anthologized "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God," Jonathan Edwards was a noted philosopher in the field of Aesthetics, or the metaphysics of Beauty. An examination even of his sermons reveals constant references to this philosophical preoccupation, his favorite word in many passages seeming to be "Sweetness," by which term he intended to convey a rich sense of Beauty. In "A Dissertation Concerning the Nature of True Virtue," he explores the inseparable connection between Beauty and Truth, basing his deepest conviction of the Truth of Christianity on its inherent Beauty, Harmony, and Sweetness.

Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758) was a pre-revolutionary American pastor and academic in Massachusetts, and is also widely considered to be both the last of the great Puritans, and a founder of modern evangelicalism. In 1732, his church and many churches in the surrounding region experienced "The Great Awakening", a massive religious revival. The Great Awakening saw many people having heightened "affections", or emotions, in response to their increased spirituality - this included excessive weeping, joyous outbursts, and many other manifestations that concerned more conservative people around them. Edwards wrote Religious Affections in order to show that affections could be a legitimate part of Christian spirituality, but only when conjoined with sound theology and godly practice. The book now stands as a classic in the field of Christian spirituality. (Summary by Matthew James Gray)