In the following decade two more books were dedicated to confirming Brummell as a cult figure. In England there was Captain Jesse's two volume "Life of George Brummell" (1844), the first biography devoted to him. In France there was the influential essay of Jules Amédée Barbey d'Aurevilly, "On Dandyism and George Brummell" (1845), which seeks to define the essence of dandyism through a study of his career and opinions. In the course of his essay, Barbey d'Aurevilly deprecates English attempts to portray Brummell in fiction: "Within Brummell's lifetime two well-known authors took up their pensharpened to exquisite points and dipped in musk-scented Chinese inkto cast on blue-tinted paper with silver borders a few facile lines where one catches a glimpse of Brummell." He was referring to two examples of the fashionable or silver fork novel, of which more than a thousand were to be written over the next two decades.