Philosophy in the Boudoir

Donatien Alphonse Fran&ccedil;ois de Sade, better known as the Marquis de Sade (1740 &ndash; 1814), was a French aristocrat and writer of philosophy-laden and often violent pornography, as well as some strictly philosophical works.

Philosophy in the Bedroom accounts the lascivious education of a privileged young lady at the dawn of womanhood.

Justine, Philosophy in the Bedroom, and Other Writings

Three Complete Novels

...shines a perverse and revealing spotlight on the entire era of the French Revolution... An important elucidating book

It is highly important that we have this authentic and definitive edition.

The Marquis de Sade, born Donatien Alphonse François in 1740, is one of the most famous and notorious figures in French history. The man whose name coined sadism is best known for his violent and blasphemous sexual exploits, which he recorded in his books and plays. After a series of arrests and exiles for acts of sodomy and sexual abuse of a number of prostitutes, the Marquis de Sade was eventually successfully imprisoned in the Bastille in 1784. On 4 July 1789, he was transferred to an insane asylum at Charenton near Paris. Ten days later, the storming of the Bastille, a major event of the French Revolution, occurred at the famous prison. During Robespierre's Reign of Terror in post-war France, Sade obtained his freedom and soon established himself as an important political figure. However, his public criticism of Robespierre ensured he was imprisoned once more. In 1803, Sade was declared insane for the second time and was reinstated at Charenton. He died there in 1814, having conducted a sexual affair with a thirteen-year-old girl.

Here, in one volume, are three major novels by the Marquis de Sade, including the only authentic and complete British edition of his most famous work JUSTINE: one of his most daring works, PHILOSOPHY IN THE BEDROOM: and the eighteenth-century masterpiece, EUGENIE DE FRANVAL. Also included is Sade's famous DIALOGUE BETWEEN A PRIEST AND A DYING MAN, a selection from his letters, a fifty-page chronology of his life, two important essays on Sade, and a bibliography of his work.

And Other Writings

The 120 Days Of Sodom

The magnum opus of infamous French libertine, aristocrat, erotic author and extremist politician, the Marquis de Sade. The ultimate exploration of sexual deviation including sado-masochism and violent sexual abuse, this is a shocking insight into the psychopathology of sex, seen through the eyes of history's most famous sexual deviant. With an introduction by famous feminist writer and literary critic, Simone de Beauvoir.

Sade was one of the most radical minds in Western history, one that touched, with astonishing fusion of madness and cold rationality, on some of the most central aspects of psychic life... He remains a great, horrifying, but also vastly illuminating figure

Marquis De Sade (Author) The Marquis de Sade, born Donatien Alphonse François in 1740, is one of the most famous and notorious figures in French history. The man whose name coined sadism is best known for his violent and blasphemous sexual exploits, which he recorded in his books and plays. After a series of arrests and exiles for acts of sodomy and sexual abuse of a number of prostitutes, the Marquis de Sade was eventually successfully imprisoned in the Bastille in 1784. On 4 July 1789, he was transferred to an insane asylum at Charenton near Paris. Ten days later, the storming of the Bastille, a major event of the French Revolution, occurred at the famous prison. During Robespierre's Reign of Terror in post-war France, Sade obtained his freedom and soon established himself as an important political figure. However, his public criticism of Robespierre ensured he was imprisoned once more. In 1803, Sade was declared insane for the second time and was reinstated at Charenton. He died there in 1814, having conducted a sexual affair with a thirteen-year-old girl. Simone de Beauvoir (Introducer) Simone de Beauvoir was born in Paris in 1908. In 1929 she became the youngest person ever to obtain the agrégation in philosophy at the Sorbonne, placing second to Jean-Paul Sartre. She taught at the lycées at Marseille and Rouen from 1931-1937, and in Paris from 1938-1943. After the war, she emerged as one of the leaders of the existentialist movement, working with Sartre on Les Temps Mordernes. The author of several books including The Mandarins (1957) which was awarded the Prix Goncourt, de Beauvoir was one of the most influential thinkers of her generation. She died in 1986.

The 120 Days of Sodom is the Marquis de Sade's masterpiece. A still unsurpassed catalogue of sexual perversions and the first systematic exploration of the psychopathology of sex, it was written during Sade's lengthy imprisonment for sexual deviancy and blasphemy and then lost after the storming of the Bastille during the French Revolution in 1789. 
 
Later rediscovered, the manuscript remained unpublished until 1936 and is now introduced by Simone de Beauvoir's landmark essay, 'Must We Burn Sade?' Unique in its enduring capacity to shock and provoke, The 120 Days of Sodom must stand as one of the most controversial books ever written, and a fine example of the Libertine novel, a genre inspired by eroticism and anti-establishmentarianism, that effectively ended with the French Revolution.

The Marquis de Sade

Will McMorran

Thomas Wynn

Without in any way giving in to hyperbole, I would say that this translation is a 21st century monument, changing not only the way in which we view the French 18th century, but providing a guide to the present and future

Andrew Hussey, Scott Moncrieff Prize judge

The great merit of this edition is the thoroughly excellent translation by Will McMorran and Thomas Wynn. It has none of the phoney archaism of earlier English translations. Instead it is like a window, allowing us to have as clear of view as possible of Sade's mind and world ... In their scholarly and wise introduction, the translators are careful to emphasise the historical context ... Sade's novel feels as grimly relevant to the terrors of our age as to those of his own.

A blistering new translation ... This new version of the 120 Days is well overdue [and] these two dons have done a sterling job ... This new, accessible 120 Days also forces us to confront ourselves

We thought this translation was quite exceptional in its capacity to capture the true voice of this strange and difficult eighteenth-century text, the textual and editorial scholarship of the translators, their wonderful handling of the terminology and the diction of the original, along with the fluency of their translation, and the ways in which it creates for the first time for Anglophone readers a properly accurate version of Sade's text

The Marquis de Sade

Praise for The 120 Days of Sodom

Without in any way giving in to hyperbole, I would say that this translation is a 21st century monument, changing not only the way in which we view the French 18th century, but providing a guide to the present and f ...

The great merit of this edition is the thoroughly excellent translation by Will McMorran and Thomas Wynn. It has none of the phoney archaism of earlier English translations. Instead it is like a window, allowing us ...

An excellent translation

Without in any way giving in to hyperbole, I would say that this translation is a 21st century monument, changing not only the way in which we view the French 18th century, but providing a guide to the present and f ...

The great merit of this edition is the thoroughly excellent translation by Will McMorran and Thomas Wynn. It has none of the phoney archaism of earlier English translations. Instead it is like a window, allowing us ...

An excellent translation

Without in any way giving in to hyperbole, I would say that this translation is a 21st century monument, changing not only the way in which we view the French 18th century, but providing a guide to the present and f ...

The great merit of this edition is the thoroughly excellent translation by Will McMorran and Thomas Wynn. It has none of the phoney archaism of earlier English translations. Instead it is like a window, allowing us ...

An excellent translation

Books by The Marquis de Sade

Follow penguin

Follow ladybird

Follow puffin

Sign up to the Penguin newsletter