In the first half of the century, the most popular of all the books written about poverty was, however, not an earnest social tract, but The Mysteries of Paris. It was written by Eugène Sue (1804–57), who served as a military surgeon in the French invasion of Spain in 1823, and was present at the Battle of Navarino in 1827 during the Greek War of Independence. Sue wrote Romantic, sensationalist stories with subjects featuring pirates and bandits, and in his novel Mathilde (1841) coined the saying ‘revenge is a dish best served cold’. Serialized in ninety parts during 1842–3, The Mysteries of
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