Denis Diderot

Denis Diderot was born in 1713 in Langres, a provincial town in eastern France, the son of a prosperous cutler. Educated by the Jesuits, he moved to Paris as a young man and spent a decade living in bohemian poverty, translating, tutoring, and writing before undertaking the project that would consume twenty-five years of his life: the Encyclopedie, the great compendium of Enlightenment knowledge. The project brought him censorship, imprisonment, and the hostility of the French crown and the Catholic Church, but also lasting fame as one of the most audacious intellectual entrepreneurs in history. This author hub collects 1 work in the Canon Compass ranking, led by Jacques the Fatalist and His Master.