Product Description

Revered by Enlightenment and Victorian thinkers, de Sade was recognized as a founding father by the Surrealists, and holds a prominent place in the history of modernism and post-modernism. This selection of his early writings, some appearing in English translation for the first time, reveals the full range of his sobering moods and considerable talents.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #533715 in Books
• Published on: 1999-07-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 336 pages

Customer Reviews

Definitive Sade.
The Misfortunes of Virtue is a blistering tale of woe that is unyielding and profane. Sade hurls his "victim" Justine from one catastrophe to another and he is relentless with the misery inflicted upon her. He teases the reader with false hope and deceitful benevolence and leads us into his suffocating nirvana of human indifference and selfishness. Sade's incarcerated psyche penetrates the text and the stench of his pre-Darwinian philosophy lingers painfully from page to page. David Coward's new translation of The Misfortunes of Virtue and other early tales provides an engaging introduction to the literary world of the Marquis De Sade.

An interesting look at the young Marquis.
Sade is known primarily for his unprintable, unpublishable works, but most of the short stories or fables in this collection are only slightly risque, if they are at all. Primarily adaptations of folk tales from around Provence, or attacks on the administrative figures who hounded him under three regimes, these stories show a different side of Sade: the humorist. Also included is _Les Infortunes des Virtu_, the first version of _Justine_, and considered by many Sade scholars to be the best.