The genre effectively ended with the French Revolution.
Themes of libertine novels were anti-clericalism, anti-establishment and eroticism.
Other famous titles are Histoire de Dom Bougre, Portier des Chartreux (1741) and Thérèse Philosophe (1748).
Precursors to the libertine writers were Théophile de Viau (1590–1626) and Charles de Saint-Évremond (1610–1703), who were inspired by Epicurus and the publication of Petronius, and John Wilmot (Sodom, or the Quintessence of Debauchery, 1684).
Robert Darnton is a cultural historian who has covered this genre extensively.