Denis Diderot

Denis Diderot was a French philosopher, art critic and writer, best known for serving as co-founder, chief editor and contributor to the Encyclopédie along with Jean le Rond d'Alembert. He was a prominent figure during the Age of Enlightenment. He studied philosophy at a Jesuit college and briefly studied law, and when he decided to become a writer in 1734 his father disowned him. In the 1740s he wrote many of his best-known works in fiction and non-fiction, including the 1748 novel Les Bijoux indiscrets, and in 1751 he co-created the Encyclopédie.