Donatien Alphonse Francois, Marquis de Sade (1740-1814), one of the most perplexing personalities of Western culture, has been called 'the freest spirit who ever lived' and 'a frenetic and abominable assemblage of all crimes and obscenities'. Yet scant attention has been given to the two women who were the catalysts of his fate: his loyal, tolerant wife, Renee-Pelagie, and his vindictive mother-in-law, Madame de Montreuil. This groundbreaking account vividly brings to life these two dynamic women and the complex bonds they evolved with the rakish Marquis, as they dedicated themselves to protecting, curbing and, ultimately, confining him. Francine du Plessix Gray draws on thousands of pages of correspondence between the magnetic, aristocratic Marquis de Sade and his plain, bourgeois wife, to explore in historical and psychological detail what it was like to live with this maverick adventurer and man of letters in the decades before the French Revolution. She brilliantly recreates the extravagant hedonism and corruption of late-18th-century France, the ensuing Terror, and the oppression of the Napoleonic regime under which de Sade spent his last years.

Discussing the 'real' Marquis de Sade from his mythical and demonic reputation, John Phillips examines Sade's life and work his libertine novels, his championing of atheism, and his uniqueness in bringing the body and sex back into philosophy.

This groundbreaking account of the scandalous life & violent times of the Donatien Alphonse Francoise, Marquis de Sade, explores his relationship with his family: his pious wife, Renee-Pelagie, his iron-willed mother-in-law, Mme. de Montreuil, & his three children. Marquis de Sade (1740-1814), one of the most perplexing personalities of Western culture, has been called Ôthe freest spirit who ever lived'. The author vividly brings to life these 2 dynamic women & the complex bonds they evolved with the Marquis, as they dedicated themselves to protecting, curbing &, ultimately, confining him. Recreates the hedonism & corruption of late-18th-cent. France, the ensuing Terror, & the oppression of the Napoleonic regime. Illustrations.

Om den franske diplomatsøn, kavalleriofficer, adelsmand og forfatter Donatien Alphonse François de Sades (1740-1814) dramatiske livshistorie og erotiske forfatterskab, der sammenlagt kostede ham 27 års fængsel

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.

Since their publication, the works of the Marquis de Sade have challenged the reading public with a philosophy of relentless physical transgression. This is the first book-length academic study by a single author that applies the philosophy of the Marquis de Sade to the analysis of a wide array of film texts. By employing Sade’s controversial body-oriented philosophy within film analysis, this book provides a new understanding of notions of pain, pleasure, and the representation of the transgressive body in film. Whereas many analyses have used theory to excuse and thus dilute the power of sexual and violent images, the author has here sought to examine cinematic representations of human relations as unflinchingly as Sade did in his novels.

"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"--