Jacqueline Carroy, directrice d’études honoraire à l’EHESS, travaille sur l'histoire culturelle et sociale de la psychologie, de l'hypnose et des rêves. Elle est également membre du centre Alexandre Koyré d’histoire des sciences et des techniques. Elle a publié notamment en 1991 et 1993 aux PUF : Hypnose, suggestion et psychologie. L’invention de sujets ainsi que Les personnalités doubles et multiples. Entre science et fiction. Elle est l’autrice à La Découverte, avec Annick Ohayon et Régine Plas, d’une Histoire de la psychologie en France, XIXe-XXe siècles (2006) puis de Mourir d'amour avec Marc Renneville en 2022.
Near Constantine, Algeria, in 1888, a young man and a married woman locked themselves in the bedroom of an empty house. Four gunshots rang out. The woman was found dead; the man had survived and claimed they had wished to die locked in embrace together. A failed suicide pact, or a murder in disguise?
This story immediately sparked controversy as well as moral, political, and philosophical debates about the responsibilities of science and literature, accused of leading youth astray.
In this book, a pair of historians exhume this affair, reconstruct the multiple dimensions of the collective imagination, and highlight what could well be a forerunner of contemporary debates on femicides.
Honorary director of studies at the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (EHESS), Jacqueline Carroy studies the cultural and social histories of psychology, hypnosis, and dreams. Among her works are Les Personnalités doubles et multiples. Entre science et fiction (Split and Multiple Personalities: Between Science and Fiction, PUF, 1993) and Nuits savantes. Une histoire des rêves (Wise Nights: A History of Dreams, 1800-1945, EHESS Éditions, 2012), as well as Histoire de la psychologie en France XIXe-XXe siècles (The History of Psychology in France, 19th-20th century, La Découverte, 2006) with Annick Ohayon and Régine Plas.
Marc Renneville directs research at the Centre Alexandre Koyré (National Center for Scientific Research, CNRS) and Criminocorpus, the academic online platform on the history of justice, crime, and punishment (Clamor, CNRS-Ministry of Justice). Among his works are Le Langage des crânes. Histoire de la phrénologie (The Language of Skulls: A History of Phrenology, French Society for the History of Medicine Prize, repr. La Découverte, 2020), Crime et folie. Deux siècles d’enquêtes médicales et judiciaires (Crime and Madness: Two Centuries of Medical and Judicial Investigations, Fayard, 2003), Vacher l’éventreur. Archives d’un tueur en série (Vacher, the French Ripper: Archives of a Serial Killer, J. Millon, 2019, Prix Sade for the Essay, 2020), and Le Chant des crimes. Les complaintes de l’affaire Vacher (The Song of Crime: Laments of the Vacher Affair, Gaelis éditions, 2021).