Publisher's blurb: Wretched Époque takes place in the period known as the Belle Époque. This is the time and the fictional place where Umberto Eco's Simone Simonini crosses paths with Jacques Tardi's Adèle Blanc-Sec, Edgar Allan Poe's Chevalier Auguste Dupin and Maurice Leblanc's Arsène Lupin, amidst anarchist bombings, the echoes of the Dreyfus affair, the catastrophic side effects of secret societies conspiring in the shadows and the mysterious results of experiences conducted by mad geniuses. Not yet pulp, not quite historical, it is neither the right time nor the right mood for Steampunk or Dieselpunk. Welcome to the wretched times of Nouveaupunk!