Chateaubriand, a writer, politician, diplomat and historian, remains widely regarded as the founder of French Romanticism.

Although the work shares characteristics with earlier French "memoirs" (like the Memoirs of Saint-Simon), the Mémoires d'Outre-Tombe are also inspired by the Confessions of Jean-Jacques Rousseau: in addition to providing a record of political and historical events, Chateaubriand includes details of his private life and his personal aspirations.

The project had by now become more ambitious; indeed, he tried to reproduce not only his personal exploits, but the epic historical and political events of the era.

Chateaubriand originally intended for the work to be published at least fifty years after his death, but his financial troubles forced him, in his words, "to mortgage [his] tomb".

[1][2] An abridged translation by Robert Baldick was first published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1961, and later, in paperback, by Penguin books in 1972.