Dreyfus affair
"The Dreyfus Affair" remains the most famous of Méliès's reconstructed actualities, surpassing even his highly successful 1902 work in the genre, "The Coronation of Edward VII". The film historian Georges Sadoul believed "The Dreyfus Affair" to be the first "politically engaged film" in the history of cinema. In a study of the Dreyfus affair, the cultural historian Venita Datta comments appreciatively on the dramatic power of Méliès's series, with the combat between Dreyfusard and anti-Dreyfusard journalists "brilliantly played up". The series is prominently featured in Susan Daitch's 2001 novel "Paper Conspiracies", which includes fictionalized accounts of its making, preservation, and survival.