Sade: A Biography (Harvest Book) Book

To some the Marquis de Sade was a monster; to others an apostle of sexual freedom and a literary genius. In this "masterful" (Publishers Weekly) and monumental work, Maurice Lever reconstructs the complex life of the "divine marquis" in all its splendor and perversity. Unprecedented access to the Sade family archives has allowed Lever to paint the definitive portrait of Sade and of his milieu -- self-absorbed nobles who believed inferiors existed for the aristocracy's own pleasure.Sade was caught up in the political and social upheavals of eighteenth-century France: imprisoned in the Bastille just before it was stormed; sentenced to die during the Reign of Terror; and condemned by Napoleon as a pornographer and committed to an asylum, where he spent his last years. In counterpoint was the marquis's wife, a demure, religious woman who tried to rescue from persecution the man who regularly betrayed her, even with her own sister.Read More