About Me
I was born on June 2, 1740, in the Condé palace in Paris. I live a libertine existence; the term ‘sadism’ is named after me.
Many of my literary works contain explicit and often repetitive descriptions of rape and countless sexual perversions, often involving violence and transcending the boundaries of the possible. My libertines found their philosophy on a purposeful flouting of moral norms and a hatred of religious ethics. In nature, they say, the strong win and the weak lose; therefore all laws and ethics, designed as they are to protect the weak, are seen as unnatural.
In 1782, while in prison, I completed the short ‘Dialogue Between a Priest and a Dying Man’, expressing my atheism by having the dying libertine convince the priest of the mistakes of a pious life.
My novel ‘The 120 Days of Sodom’, written in 1785 but not completed, catalogs a wide variety of sexual perversions performed on a group of enslaved teenagers and is my most graphic work. The manuscript was lost during the storming of the Bastille and the book was not published until 1904.
In 1787 I wrote ‘Les infortunes de la vertu’, an early version of ‘Justine’ which was published in 1791. It describes the misfortunes of a girl who continues to believe in the goodness of God despite persistent evidence to the contrary. The companion novel ‘Juliette’ (1798) narrates the adventures of Justine's sister, Juliette, who chooses to reject the teachings of the church and adopt an amoral hedonist philosophy, resulting in a successful, fulfilled life.
The novel ‘Philosophy in the Bedroom’ (1795) accounts the lascivious education of a privileged young lady at the dawn of womanhood, culminating in the rape and mutilation of the girl's mother. The work is structured as a play and is concise, witty and engaging; the archetypal Sadean characters are, here, used most effectively. The book contains a lengthy political pamphlet 'Frenchmen! One More Effort If You Wish To Be Republicans!' in which I advocate for a utopian form of socialism. I state that laws against theft are absurd: they protect the original thieves, the wealthy, against the poor who have no option left but theft. I also argue that the state has no right to outlaw murder if it continues to sanction institutionalized murder in the form of executions and war. Laws against blasphemy are seen as pointless: they are not needed if God doesn't exist, and if He does, he surely won't be petty enough to care about minor attacks. The pamphlet was reprinted separately for distribution during the revolution of 1848.
In ‘Aline and Valcour’ (1795) I contrast a brutal African kingdom with a utopian island paradise. This was the first book published under my true name, as opposed to previous pen names. In 1800 I published a four-volume collection of short stories titled ‘Crimes of Love’. One notable story in the collection, ‘Florville and Courval’, revolves around a young woman who is unwittingly entangled in a web of incest.
While incarcerated again at Charenton, I completed three historical novels: ‘Adelaide of Brunswick’, ‘Isabelle of Bavaria’ and ‘The Marquise de Gange’.
I also wrote several plays, most of them unpublished. ‘Le Misanthrope par amour ou Sophie et Desfrancs’ was accepted by the Comédie-Française in 1790, and ‘Le Comte Oxtiern ou les effets du libertinage’ was performed at the Théâtre Molière in 1791.
More about me later.
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