Sexologist had an enormous effect on fin-de-siècle literature, thanks to the popularization of their work. Doctors led the way and novelists followed, transforming themselves into physiognomists and delving into treatises on sexual psychopathology to begin developing their archetype of the lesbian. These writers adopted the abstruse language of sexologists with astonishing speed, and dozens of popular and successful novels depicted the different types of female inversion. A whole range of popular fiction disseminated medical theories that linked sapphism with pathology. It put into circulation a new image of the lesbian, but these books were more a reflection of the fantasies of an era than any sociological reality. If the first sexologists were obviously influenced in their approach to sapphism by the accuracy – or inaccuracy – of certain works of literature, fin-de-siècle literature itself drew sustenance from the abundant discourse about the lesbian in scientific studies.