Simon Tyssot de Patot was a French writer, poet, and academic who lived and worked during the Age of Enlightenment. Born in London to French Huguenot parents, he spent his youth moving through various towns, including Rouans, Delft, Heusden, and Den Bosch. He eventually settled in the Netherlands, spending the majority of his adult life in Deventer. There, he taught French and served as a professor of mathematics at the Athenaeum Illustre of Deventer, receiving appointments in 1690 and 1699.
Throughout his career, Tyssot de Patot connected with prominent intellectual figures of his era. He likely met the English philosopher John Locke in the 1680s and almost certainly knew the Irish deist John Toland during Toland's residence in The Hague. Within his own literary output, Tyssot de Patot penned two seminal works in the genre of fantastic literature, though his academic and personal life remained largely uneventful until his later years.
In 1727, at the age of seventy-two, Tyssot de Patot's life was disrupted by the publication of his Lettres choisies. The work provoked a public scandal, and he was accused of Spinozism, irreligious beliefs, and immoral views. After failing to clear his name, he was dismissed from his professorship and forced to leave Deventer. He spent his remaining years in IJsselstein, where he died in 1738.
