Barbey d'Aurevilly had no intention to write an exhaustive biography on Brummel—such a book had been written by William Jesse and published in 1844.
[1] Barbey d’Aurevilly later revisits his ideas on dandyism in his short story La veangeance d'une femme (1874), exploring in literary form his theory that fashion is power.
[2] When the book was finished it was first distributed among Brummel's French friends before it was printed in Paris.
[1] An English translation by Douglas Ainslie was published in 1897 as Of Dandyism and of George Brummell.
[3] D. B. Wyndham Lewis made a second translation which was published in 1928 as The Anatomy of Dandyism.