“The more successful the villain, the more successful the film will be. » Alfred Hitchcock « Crime unceasingly besieges the most virtuous man; every moment he lives, he is ready to fall prey to the villain or villain himself. » Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The new Héloïse What is wickedness? Philosophy and sociology have conceptualized it and declined it in its many forms. Literature, history, cinema, art in all its disciplines are full of cruel and cynical characters, both fascinating and terrifying. But no one so far has offered an overview. The Dictionary of wickedness offers the reader, through 169 entries written by 80 specialists in the human and social sciences, a variety of historical portraits (Catherine de Medici, César Borgia, Marie Tudor, etc.), fictitious (the Marquise de Merteuil, Tatie Danielle , Voldemort…) or mythological (Medea, Circe, Mélusine…), as well as a redefinition of concepts linked to wickedness (tyranny, perversity, cruelty…). Fascinating work accessible to all, where classic iconography meets cinemascope and contemporary drawing, The Dictionary of Wickedness invites us to a global introspection, to an immersion in the pangs of the darkness of souls.