Lefebvre's account of the origins of the French Revolution was written in Quatre-Vingt-Neuf, & published in 1939 to mark the sesquicentennial of the events of 1789, but the Vichy government that took over the following year wanted no left-wing history or sympathetic understanding of the Revolution, as they drew their support from the anti-republican right. The Vichy régime suppressed the book, ordering 8000 copies to be burned; as a result the work was virtually unknown in its native land until reprinted in '70. Its reputation was already secure in the English-speaking world, however, since the English translation, The Coming of the French Revolution ('39) had established it as a clear, yet subtle, classic. It remains the definitive explanation of the Marxist interpretation of the causes of the Revolution. His seminal work, La Révolution Française (revised edition, '51) was translated into English as 2 volumes: The French Revolution from its Origins to 1793 ('62-4) & The French Revolution from 1793 to 1799 ('64).