Bøker av Marquis de Sade

The 120 Days of Sodom, also known as the School of Libertinism, is described by the author as the most impure tale that has ever been told since our world began. The novel tells the story of four wealthy male libertines who resolve to experience the ultimate sexual gratification in orgies. To do this, they seal themselves away for four months in an inaccessible castle with a harem of 46 victims, mostly young male and female teenagers and engage four female brothel keepers to tell the stories of their lives and adventures.

If de Sade had submitted the original version of Justine to us (from prison) in 1791 we would have rejected it, because it is pure sadism, as is to be expected from the original 'sadist', even though it is wrapped up in philosophy. However, it is now freely available in English as a classic, and has been so for quite a while. This version is simplified rather than toned down, but the actual ages of juveniles have been omitted..de Sade uses his narrative as a vehicle for expressing his opinions at very great length. This and the obscurity of some passages, and the constant repetitions, makes it difficult for the average reader. Here is an effort to rectify this, an honest attempt to make the essence of a masterpiece more easily available by retelling it without losing the strength or the flavour, and enough of the philosophy is retained to make de Sade's opinions clear.

"When numerous critics have all pointed to the stunning mastery of dialogue evinced in [Sade's] novels, to say nothing of the truly theatrical disposition of many of the scenes-erotic or otherwise-this would seem to be linked to the theatrical obsession that persisted so disturbingly throughout his tempestuous existence. Shouldn't we therefore look more closely at this theatre...?" Annie Le BrunIn commemoration of the two hundred years that have passed since the death of the Marquis de Sade in 1814, the three-volume series, Rape, Incest, Murder! The Marquis de Sade on Stage, offers English translations of all of Sade's writings, for and about the theatre, with introductions that contextualize Sade's work within the theatrical climate of eighteenth-century France.Volume 3 presents Sade's plays and occasional verse written at the Charenton Asylum during the reign of Napoleon. The lunatic asylum provided Sade with a creative freedom that allowed him not only to conceive his most innovative and original work, but to stage it as well, using actors from the asylum and the professional theatre. The violence and eroticism of Sade's infamous novels continue to be present in the plays, to such a degree that the asylum directors considered Sade's theatre to be a dangerous threat to the inmates. "[I]t is at the theatre rather than somewhere else that we must revive the almost extinguished flame of the love that every Frenchman owes his country; there is where he'll be convinced of the dangers that would exist for him should he fall back into the hands of tyranny. He'll carry home the enthusiasm and teach it to his family and its effects will be so much more durable, so much more passionate than the momentary inspirations of a newspaper article or proclamation because at the theatre, he learns the lesson by example, and he remembers it."The Marquis de Sade

"When numerous critics have all pointed to the stunning mastery of dialogue evinced in [Sade's] novels, to say nothing of the truly theatrical disposition of many of the scenes-erotic or otherwise-this would seem to be linked to the theatrical obsession that persisted so disturbingly throughout his tempestuous existence. Shouldn't we therefore look more closely at this theatre...?" Annie Le BrunIn commemoration of the two hundred years that have passed since the death of the Marquis de Sade in 1814, the three-volume series, Rape, Incest, Murder! The Marquis de Sade on Stage, offers English translations of all of Sade's writings, for and about the theatre, with introductions that contextualize Sade's work within the theatrical climate of eighteenth-century France.Volume 2 presents Sade's plays written in prison during the years that preceded and immediately followed the fall of the Bastille in 1789. The revolutionary spirit of the time inspired Sade to pen his only tragedy, a music drama, and a comedy anticipating the Romantics, calling for a relaxation of the classical rules. The violence and eroticism of Sade's infamous novels are present in the plays, though in a lower dosage, obviously to render them accessible to public performance rather than private reading. "[I]t is at the theatre rather than somewhere else that we must revive the almost extinguished flame of the love that every Frenchman owes his country; there is where he'll be convinced of the dangers that would exist for him should he fall back into the hands of tyranny. He'll carry home the enthusiasm and teach it to his family and its effects will be so much more durable, so much more passionate than the momentary inspirations of a newspaper article or proclamation because at the theatre, he learns the lesson by example, and he remembers it." The Marquis de Sade

The 120 Days of Sodom is the most extreme book in the history of literature. The Marquis de Sade narrates the escalating sex-crimes of four libertines who barricade themselves in a remote castle with both male and female victims and accomplices for a four-month, precipitous orgy of sodomy, coprophagia and rape leading inexorably towards torture and human decimation. A masterpiece of black humour, pornographic to a point of excess and aberration never reached by any other writer, and required reading for anyone looking for the seminal origins of contemporary culture's fascination with cruelty and violence, The 120 Days of Sodom is the first and ultimate literary outrage. It also stands as the first attempt by an author to collate a systematic psychopathology of human sexual disorder, pre-dating Krafft-Ebing's Psychopathia Sexualis by a century. Until now, Sade's masterwork was only available in tame, outdated translations. This new, uncensored and more complete version of The 120 Days of Sodom brings the work back to incendiary life, returning it to the streamlined status of the revolutionary, raw work Sade had intended. Unbearable, unforgettable, violent, cruel, blasphemous, obscene: The 120 Days of Sodom is a unique and addictive detonation of the senses for the discerning 21st century reader. With a foreword by Georges Bataille, author of The Story of the Eye.

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

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.