Aline and Valcour Or The Philosophical Novel


Book Description

Aline and Valcour are two young people who love each other passionately. But Aline's father, the Comte de Blamont, is an unscrupulous despot whom neither friendship, nor even family, restrains his bestial sexual appetites, even going so far as to mix his daughters in his morbid desires. A passionate and cruel plot, faithful exponent of the literary style of one of the most characterized "cursed" writers in Western society.




Aline and Valcour, Vol. 1: Or, the Philosophical Novel


Book Description

Set against the impending riptide of the French Revolution and composed while Sade was imprisoned in the Bastille, Aline and Valcour embodies the multiple themes that would become the hallmark of his far more sulfurous works. This epistolary work combines genres, interweaving the adventure story with the libertine novel and the novel of feelings to create a compelling, unitary tale. Turbulence disrupts virtuous lives when corrupt schemers work incestuous designs upon them that don't stop with abduction and seduction -- as crime imposes tragic obstacles to love and delivers harsh threats to morality and religion. Embedded within Aline and Valcour are sojourns in unknown lands in Africa and the South Seas: Butua, a cannibalistic dystopia, and Tamoé, a utopian paradise headed by a philosopher-king. In Butua, a lustful chief and callous priesthood rule over a doomed people, with atrocious crimes committed in broad daylight, while in Tamoé happiness and prosperity reign amidst benevolent anarchy. Although not sexually explicit, Aline and Valcour shared the fate of Sade's other novels -- banned in 1815 and later classified a prohibited work by the French government. Published clandestinely, it did not appear in bookstores until after WWII. Continuously in print in France ever since, today it occupies the first volume of the Pléiade edition of the author's collected works. This is the very first rendering of the book into English since its publication in 1795.




The Marquise de Gange


Book Description

'It is time to die, Madame: there shall be no mercy for you..!' It was one of the most shocking crimes of the seventeenth century, and would provide Sade with the inspiration for the last novel he published. The beautiful and virtuous Euphrasie, admired by the King himself, falls in love with the young and handsome Alphonse, Marquis de Gange. Within the forbidding walls of his castle in Provence, however, sinister forces are conspiring against the young couple. Alphonse's brothers, the Abbé and the Chevalier, want Euphrasie for themselves. Published in English for the first time, The Marquise de Gange is a neglected Gothic classic by one of the most notorious authors in the literary canon. Although a departure from his earlier pornographic and libertine works, beneath the novel's thin veneer of respectability lurks the same subversive presence of an author plotting against virtue in distress.




Aline and Valcour, Vol. 3: Or, the Philosophical Novel


Book Description

Set against the impending riptide of the French Revolution and composed while Sade was imprisoned in the Bastille, Aline & Valcour is a sprawling and intellectually sweeping work. Unlike 120 Days of Sodom, while not pornographic, Aline & Valcour embodies the multiple themes and ideas that would become the hallmark of Sade's more sulfurous works.




Marquis de Sade


Book Description

A detailed, analytical study of the life and times of this brilliant but bizarre personality (and the sexually erotic times he lived in), containing the essence of all his writings, based on research by Bloch in private archives of the French Government, and Bloch's discovery of de Sade's unpublished manuscript of 120 Days of Sodom in Marseilles. The work contains a precis of the 120 Days of Sodom, the first attempt systematically to catalog and describe abnormal sexual behavior -- 100 years before Krafft-Ebing. A serious academic study of France during de Sade's time, its sexual morality, de Sade's works, and the role of sadism in literature, etc., this biography precedes de Beauvoir's Faut-il Brule de Sade? and began the resuscitation and modern study of De Sade. The author Iwan Bloch, a German physician, won a distinguished name in the world of science in the fields, of medical history and anthropology.




The Marquis de Sade and the Avant-Garde


Book Description

"This is the first book to examine the cultural history of Marquis de Sade's (1740-1814) philosophical ideas and their lasting influence on political and artistic debates. An icon of free expression, Sade lived through France's Reign of Terror, and his writings offer both a pitiless mirror on humanity and a series of subversive metaphors that allow for the exploration of political, sexual, and psychological terror. Generations of avant-garde writers and artists have responded to Sade's philosophy as a means of liberation and as a radical engagement with social politics and sexual desire, writing fiction modelled on Sade's novels, illustrating luxury editions of his works, and translating his ideas into film, photography, and painting. In The Sadean Imagination, Alyce Mahon examines how Sade used images and texts as forms that could explore and dramatize the concept of terror on political, physical, and psychic levels, and how avant-garde artists have continued to engage in a complex dialogue with his works. Studying Sade's influence on art from the French Revolution through the twentieth century, Mahon examines works ranging from Anne Desclos's The Story of O, to images, texts, and films by Man Ray, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Guillaume Apollinaire, Jean-Jacques Lebel, and Peter Brook. She also discusses writings and responses to Sade by feminist theorists including Angela Carter and Judith Butler. Throughout, she shows how Sade's work challenged traditional artistic expectations and pushed the boundaries of the body and the body politic, inspiring future artists, writers, and filmmakers to imagine and portray the unthinkable"--




The Life and Ideas of the Marquis de Sade


Book Description

This classic book is on the life and ideas of the Marquis De Sade, the notorious sexual libertine and controversial writer, and will make an excellent addition to the bookshelf of anyone with an interest in the subject. Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900's and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.




Aline and Valcour, Vol. 2: Or, the Philosophical Novel


Book Description

Set against the impending riptide of the French Revolution and composed while Sade was imprisoned in the Bastille, Aline and Valcour embodies the multiple themes that would become the hallmark of his far more sulfurous works. This epistolary work combines genres, interweaving the adventure story with the libertine novel and the novel of feelings to create a compelling, unitary tale. Turbulence disrupts virtuous lives when corrupt schemers work incestuous designs upon them that don't stop with abduction and seduction -- as crime imposes tragic obstacles to love and delivers harsh threats to morality and religion. Embedded within Aline and Valcour are sojourns in unknown lands in Africa and the South Seas: Butua, a cannibalistic dystopia, and Tamoé, a utopian paradise headed by a philosopher-king. In Butua, a lustful chief and callous priesthood rule over a doomed people, with atrocious crimes committed in broad daylight, while in Tamoé happiness and prosperity reign amidst benevolent anarchy. Although not sexually explicit, Aline and Valcour shared the fate of Sade's other novels -- banned in 1815 and later classified a prohibited work by the French government. Published clandestinely, it did not appear in bookstores until after WWII. Continuously in print in France ever since, today it occupies the first volume of the Pléiade edition of the author's collected works. This is the very first rendering of the book into English since its publication in 1795.




Sade, His Ethics and Rhetoric


Book Description

This first collection of critical essays in English on the life and works of the Marquis de Sade deals in particular with the famous marquis' ethics and rhetoric. Stressing the importance and contemporary worth of his production, this unique collection dispels myths and legends concerning this eighteenth-century figure by making available published and unpublished research by internationally known scholars.




The Misfits


Book Description

Galerij van schijvers die in zich hun leven en/of werk buiten de algemeen begane paden van de seksualiteit begaven. Uitgangspunt van deze studie is de hypothese van de Hongaarse psychologe Charlotte Bach (die na haar dood een man in vrouwenkleren bleek te zijn) dat 'seksueel geperverteerden' verder geëvolueerd zijn dan mensen die seksueel 'normaal' zijn. Aandacht voor o.a. Sade, Byron, Goethe, Gogol, Swinburne, Proust, Jack the Ripper en Mishima.