This design comes from an 1893 binding that housed the legendary writer Voltaire's Zadig, or The Book of Fate. First published in 1747, The Book of Fate tells the story of Zadig, an ancient Babylonian philosopher. It is a philosophical treatise making effective use of contradiction and juxtaposition. In it one finds the seeds of the modern detective story, including a likely source of inspiration for Edgar Allan Poe's C. Auguste Dupin.