His main work, "Telliamed" (his name in reverse), was based on manuscripts written between 1722 and 1732 and was published after his death in 1748. The printed text was the result of ten years' editing by the Abbott Jean Baptiste de Mascrier in an attempt to reconcile the proposed system with the dogma of the Catholic Church. De Maillet relied on him even though he had done a poor job editing de Maillet's earlier book "Description de l'Egypte" (1735). As a result of Mascrier's tinkering, none of the printed editions accurately represents de Maillet's work, though the best is the third and final edition, published in the Hague and Paris in 1755, which includes the only known biography of de Maillet.