Neil Schaeffer presents here a wholly original, compellingly human portrait of the "divine Marquis," the enigmatic legend whose name is synonymous with brutal perversion and cruelty. Against a magnificently embroidered backdrop of eighteenth-century France, he shows us Sade's incredible life of sexual appetite, adherence to Enlightenment principles, imprisonment, scandal, and above all inexhaustible imagination. Based on a decade of research and utilizing work never before published in English, The Marquis de Sade is a definitive work that confronts nearly two hundred years of myth to reveal a Promethean figure of astonishing complexity.

About the Author
Neil Schaeffer is Professor of English Literature at Brooklyn College, City University of New York.

Reviews
Complexity is one of the virtues of this new and lengthy biography ... Schaeffer's book is a welcome addition to the literature ... Both sophisticated and hardheaded about Sade; it has a definitive quality to it. It is the strength of Schaeffer's biography that it makes Sade not just a notorious figure but a credibly heroic one as well. -- Richard Bernstein * New York Times *
As riveting as a tightly drawn historical novel...well researched and accessible. * Publishers Weekly *
By separating the facts of Sade's life from the mythology and establishing a social context for the libertine excesses of Sade's age, [Schaeffer] may have written the most fearlessly sympathetic portrait of the man yet...He wields the most subversive tool yet employed in any discussion of the Marquis: compassion. -- Doug Wright * San Francisco Chronicle *



Book Information
ISBN 9780674003927
Author Neil Schaeffer
Format Paperback
Page Count 577
Imprint Harvard University Press
Publisher Harvard University Press
Weight(grams) 789g
Dimensions(mm) 235mm * 156mm * 38mm