Crimes of Love

by Marquisde Sade (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  2002

  $8.25

  Sade is best known for his sensational books Justine, Juliette and Les Cent Vert (The One Hundred Days of Sodom), yet in his lifetime these and other major works appeared in anonymous or clandestine editions or remain unpublished. It was while he was detained in prison and incarcerated in the asylum at Charenton that he decided to follow his 'philosophical' novel Aline et Valcour with writings more accessible to the general public. And he wanted to prove that he was not a mere pornographer but a moralist, like Voltaire and other contemporaries. In The Crimes of Love Sade contends that love can lead to crime and thence to punishment. Uni-like the villains of his major novels, the men and women described in these pages all come to a sticky end. Sade was fascinated by incest but claimed that he did 'not want to make vice liked.' The stories also illustrate his love of history and his frustrated passion for drama, while 'Rodrigo or the Enchanted Tower' is an intriguing example of this complex writer's flight into fantasy - his only means of escape from detention.

• New

  Paperback
  2008

  $11.78

  'Senneval, you see in me your sister, the girl you seduced at Nancy, the woman who murdered your son, the wife of your own father and the ignoble creature who sent your mother to the gallows...' Who but the Marquis de Sade would write, not of the pain, tragedy, and joy of love but of its crimes? Murder, seduction, and incest are among the cruel rewards for selfless love in his stories; tragedy, despair, and death the inevitable outcome. Sade's villains will stop at nothing to satisfy their depraved passions, and they in turn suffer under the thrall of love. Psychologically astute, and defiantly unconventional, these stories show Sade at his best. A skilled and artful storyteller, he is also an intellectual who asks questions about society, about ourselves, and about life, for which we have yet to find the answers. This new selection includes 'An Essay on Novels', Sade's penetrating survey of the novelist's art. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.