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Marquis de Sade

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For the French post-punk band, see Marquis de Sade (band).
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Donatien Alphonse François de Sade
Marquis de Sade
Portrait of Donatien Alphonse François de Sade by Charles Amédée Philippe van Loo.[1] The drawing dates to 1760, when Sade was 19 years old, and is the only known authentic portrait of him.[2]
Coat of arms
Born(1740-06-02)2 June 1740
Paris, Kingdom of France
Died2 December 1814(1814-12-02) (aged 74)
Charenton, Val-de-Marne, Kingdom of France
Philosophy career
Notable work
EraLate 18th century
RegionFrance
SchoolLibertine
Main interests
Pornography, eroticism, politics
Notable ideas
Sadism
Family
Spouse
Renée-Pélagie Cordier de Launay
​
​
(m. 1763; sep. 1790)​
Partner
  • Marie-Constance Quesnet (1790–1814; his death)
Children
  • Louis Marie de Sade (1767–1809)
  • Donatien Claude Armand de Sade (1769–1847)
  • Madeleine Laure de Sade (1771–1844)
Parents
  • Jean Baptiste François Joseph, Comte de Sade (father)
  • Marie Eléonore de Maillé de Carman (mother)
Signature

Donatien Alphonse François, Marquis de Sade (French: [dɔnasjɛ̃ alfɔ̃z fʁɑ̃swa maʁki də sad]; 2 June 1740 – 2 December 1814), was a French writer, libertine, political activist and nobleman best known for his libertine novels and imprisonment for sex crimes, blasphemy and pornography. His works include novels, short stories, plays, dialogues, and political tracts. Some of these were published under his own name during his lifetime, but most appeared anonymously or posthumously.

Born into a noble family dating from the 13th-century, Sade served as an officer in the Seven Years War before a series of sex scandals led to his detention in various prisons and insane asylums for most of his adult life. During his first extended imprisonment from 1777 to 1790, he wrote a series of novels and other works, some of which his wife smuggled out of prison. On his release during the French Revolution, he pursued a literary career and became politically active, first as a constitutional monarchist then as a radical republican. During the Reign of Terror he was imprisoned for moderatism and narrowly escaped the guillotine. He was re-arrested in 1801 for his pornographic novels and was eventually incarcerated in the Charenton insane asylum where he died in 1814.

His major works include The 120 Days of Sodom, Justine, Juliette and Philosophy in the Bedroom which combine graphic descriptions of sex acts, rape, torture, murder and child abuse with discourses on religion, politics, sexuality and philosophy. The word sadism derives from his fictional characters who derive pleasure from inflicting pain on others.[3][4]

Interest in his work increased in the 20th-century, various authors considering him a precursor to Nietzsche[5], Freud, surrealism, totalitarianism[6] and anarchism.[7] Many prominent Intellectuals including Angela Carter, Simone de Beauvoir and Roland Barthes published studies of his work and numerous biographies have appeared.[8] Cultural depictions of his life and work include the play Marat/Sade by Peter Weiss and the film Salò by Pier Paolo Passolini.[9] Andrea Dworkin and Roger Shattuck have criticized the rehabilitation of Sade's reputation, arguing that it promotes violent pornography likely to cause harm to women,[10] the young and "unformed minds."[11]

Life

Early life, education and marriage (1740–1763)

Sade was born on 2 June 1740, in the Hôtel de Condé, Paris, the only surviving child of Jean-Baptiste François Joseph, Count de Sade and Marie-Eléonore de Maillé de Carman.[12] The Sade family was of the provincial nobility dating to the 13th-century. Sade's mother was from a junior branch of the house of Bourbon-Condé and therefore Sade was related to the King of France by blood.[13]

Sade's father was a captain of dragoons who was entrusted with diplomatic missions to the Russian Empire, Britain and the Elector of Cologne.[14][15] His mother was lady-in-waiting to the Princess of Condé and, for his first four years, Sade lived in the Hôtel de Condé.[16][17] The infant Sade was spoilt, haughty, and prone to violent rages. In 1744, he was sent to live with his grandmother in Avignon, probably because he had fought with his playmate, Louis Joseph, Prince of Condé, who was four years his senior.[17][18]

The following year, Sade was placed in the care of his paternal uncle, the Abbé de Sade, a priest and libertine who lived in the château de Saumane in the Vaucluse region. The Abbé d'Amblet was appointed as Sade's tutor and the young marquis grew to respect him greatly.[19] Meanwhile, the Count de Sade had lost favor with the king and had been recalled from his post in Germany. His career was now in ruins and his wife eventually left him to live in a Carmelite convent in Paris.[20][21]

In the autumn of 1750, ten-year-old Sade was sent to the Jesuit college Louis-le-Grand in Paris, where he was taught Latin, Greek and rhetoric, and also participated in the school's theatrical productions.[22][23] Sade's father was now heavily in debt and could not afford to enrol his son as a residential student, so Sade probably lived in private accommodation with Amblet. Residential students were discouraged from mixing with external students and this might have isolated Sade from his aristocratic peers.[24] Biographers are divided on whether Sade experienced caning and sodomy at school and whether this influenced his sexual development.[24][25]

Sade spent his summer holidays with Madame de Raimond, one of his father's former lovers, at the château de Longeville in the Champagne region. There he met Madame de Saint-Germain for whom Sade would hold a life-long affection. Both women became mother-figures for Sade.[26]

Sade's father, Jean-Baptiste François Joseph de Sade

In 1754, Sade was sent to the Chevaux-légers military academy.[27] After twenty months of training, on 14 December 1755, at age 15, Sade was commissioned as a sub-lieutenant in the King's Foot Guard.[23][28] He soon went to battle at the onset of the Seven Years' War. After thirteen months as a sub-lieutenant, he was commissioned to the rank of cornet in the Brigade de Saint-André of the Comte de Provence's Carbine Regiment on 14 January 1757,[23] and again promoted to the rank of captain in the Burgundian Cavalry on 21 April 1759.[29] Despite this, Sade generally refused to ingratiate himself with his superiors, and "disdained making friends with his peers."[30] He frequently infuriated his father with his gambling, courting, and sleeping habits.[31]

By 1761, Sade had gained a reputation as a good soldier but a gambler, spendthrift and libertine which damaged his prospects of further promotion.[32] In February 1763, the Treaty of Paris ended the Seven Years War and Sade was discharged. Back in Paris, he lived a life of pleasure while his father, ill and in serious debt, contemplated retiring to a monastery to avoid "having to welcome my son, with whom I am unhappy."[33]

Sade's father was also negotiating with the Montreuil family for his son to marry their eldest daughter Renée-Pélagie. Although the Montreuils were of bourgeois origin, and had only been ennobled in the 17th-century, they were rich and had influential contacts at court and in legal circles.[34] The count considered his son a financial burden with a bad character. "As for me, what makes up my mind is that I will be rid of the boy, who has not one good quality and all the bad ones."[35]

Meanwhile, Sade had fallen in love with a nobleman's daughter named Laure de Lauris, but was abruptly rejected after two months of courtship. He was enraged, and threatened to blackmail Lauris by blaming his venereal disease on her to the next young man she courted.[36] Sade, who proclaimed that he would only marry for love, resisted the arranged marriage with the plain and charmless Renée-Pélagie, and did not attend court when, on 1 May 1763, the king and members of the royal family endorsed the marriage contract. Sade finally relented and the two families signed the contract on 15 May. The wedding took place two days later.[37]

Sade and Renée-Pélagie moved into the rooms provided by her parents in the Hôtel de Montreuil in Paris. Sade was initially pleased with his new bride, writing to his uncle, "I don't know how to praise her enough." Two years later, however, he told the Abbé that she was "too cold and too devout."[38] She gave him two sons and a daughter, and later became an accomplice to his alleged crimes with adolescents.[39]

Sade's mother, Marie Eléonore de Maillé de Carman

Scandals and imprisonment (1763–1790)

Testard affair and aftermath

Four months after his wedding, Sade was accused of blasphemy and incitement to sacrilege, which were capital offenses.[40] He had rented a property in Paris which he used for sexual encounters. On 18 October 1763, Sade hired a prostitute named Jeanne Testard. Testard stated to the police that Sade had locked her in a bedroom before asking whether she believed in God. When she said that she did, Sade said there was no god and shouted obscenities concerning Jesus and the Virgin Mary. Sade then masturbated with a chalice and crucifix while shouting obscenities and blasphemies. He asked her to beat him with a cane and an iron scourge which had been heated by fire, but she refused. Sade then threatened her with pistols and a sword, telling her he would kill her if she didn't trample on a crucifix and exclaim obscene blasphemies. She reluctantly complied. She spent the night with Sade who read her irreligious poetry. He asked her for sodomy (another capital offense) but she refused. The following morning, Testard reported Sade to the authorities. On 29 October, following a police investigation, Sade was arrested on the personal orders of the king and jailed in Vincennes prison. Sade wrote several contrite letters to the authorities in which he expressed remorse and asked to see a priest. After Sade's father begged Louis XV for clemency, the king ordered Sade's release on 13 November.[41][42][page needed]

On his release, Sade was exiled to the Montreuil estate at Echauffour, Normandy. In September 1764, the king revoked Sade's exile and the marquis returned to Paris where he took up a series of mistresses. In the summer of 1765 he took his then mistress, Mademoiselle Beauvoison, to his favourite castle at La Coste, Provence, where he passed her off as his wife, greatly offending Madame de Montreuil. The following year, he undertook renovations of La Coste, including building a theater for public performances.[43]

In January 1767, Sade's father died. That summer, Sade went to La Coste where the local dignitaries and vassals formally swore homage to their new lord; a revival of a feudal custom which his father had avoided. On 27 August, his first son, Louis-Marie, was born.[44]

Arcueil affair and aftermath

On 3 April 1768, Easter Sunday, Sade approached a 36-year-old widow named Rose Keller who was begging at the Place des Victoires in Paris. Keller stated that Sade offered her employment as a housekeeper. He took her in his carriage to his country residence in Arcueil, where he locked her in a room and threatened to kill her if she did not undress. He then tied her down on a bed and whipped her with a cane or a cat-o'-nine-tails. She stated he also cut her with a penknife and poured hot wax on her wounds. He brandished a knife and threatened to kill her if she didn't stop screaming. He later gave her food and locked her in an upstairs room. She managed to escape out a window and sought help. She went to the authorities that evening and lodged a complaint. The local magistrate began an investigation the following day and news of the affair reached Madame de Montreuil on 7 April. She immediately sent representatives to Arcueil who paid Keller to withdraw her complaint. On 8 April, the king issued a lettre de cachet (a royal warrant for arrest and detention without trial) and Sade was imprisoned at the Château de Saumur and later the Pierre-Encize prison. On 15 April, the criminal chamber of the parlement de Paris took up the case and soon issued an arrest warrant for Sade. On 3 June, the king issued a pardon for the marquis, probably on the petition of the Montreuil family. The parlement interrogated Sade on 10 June and he stated that Keller was a prostitute who willingly supplied her services. He denied tying her down, cutting her with a knife or burning her with hot wax and stated that Keller did not complain about the flagellation at the time. The parlement accepted the king's pardon and ordered Sade to pay 100 livres in alms for prisoners. Sade was returned to Pierre-Encize prison under the lettre de cachet. On 16 November, the king ordered his release on the condition that he stay at La Coste under supervision.[45][46]

The Arcueil affair was widely publicized, causing the Sade and Montreuil families great concern for their reputation.[47] In June 1769, Renée-Pélagie gave birth to a second son, Donatien-Claude-Armand, and the Montreuils hoped this would help domesticate Sade.[48] In July 1770, Sade returned to his Burgundy regiment where he encountered some hostility. In March 1771, however, he was granted a commission as Master of Cavalry which amounted to an official rehabilitation. Soon after, a daughter, Madeleine-Laure, was born.[49] Sade, heavily in debt, was forced to sell his commission but this did not save him from a short spell in debtors' prison.[50]

In November 1771, Renée-Pélagie's 19-year-old sister, Anne-Prospère, visited the Sades at La Coste. Sade developed "a fatal passion" for his sister-in-law and it is possible that they began a sexual relationship.[51] The following year, he devoted himself to theatrical productions at La Coste and his Mazan property. He incurred large costs hiring professional actors and building elaborate sets.[52]

Marseilles affair and aftermath

In June 1772, Sade and his manservant Latour traveled to Marseilles on the pretext of obtaining a loan. On 27 June, they engaged in an elaborately staged orgy with four prostitutes. The orgy included sexual intercourse, flagellation and, according to some witnesses, active and passive sodomy involving Sade, Latour and one of the prostitutes. Sade offered the prostitutes aniseed-flavored pastilles laced with Spanish Fly. One of the prostitutes, Marianne Laverne, became ill after eating the pastilles. That evening, Sade had sex with another prostitute, Marguerite Coste, who became critically ill after eating the pastilles. Coste filed a complaint with the police and, after an investigation, a warrant was issued for the arrest of Sade on charges of sodomy and poisoning.[53][54]

Sade went into hiding and his wife paid Laverne and Coste to withdraw their complaints. The Marseilles court, however, continued the prosecution, sentencing Sade and Latour to death in absentia on 2 September. The sentence was confirmed by the Cours des Comptes de Provence in Aix on 11 September, and Sade and Latour were burnt in effigy the following day. Sade was now in Italy with Anne-Prospère, a liaison which turned Madame de Montreuil into Sade's implacable enemy. Sade wrote to his mother-in-law from Italy, disclosing his location, and she used her influence to secure his arrest and imprisonment in the Fortress of Miolans, then part of the Kingdom of Sardinia.[55] Sade escaped from the fortress on 30 April, 1773 and returned to France.[56]

Sade narrowly avoided arrest in January 1774 when he was warned of an imminent police raid on his home in La Coste which had been arranged by Madame de Montreuil. Following the death of Louis XV in May, Madame de Montreuil successfully petitioned for a new lettre de cachet for Sade's arrest in the name of King Louis XVI. Meanwhile, Renée-Pélagie requested an appeal of her husband's death sentence.[57]

La Coste affair and aftermath

In September 1774, Sade and his wife hired seven new servants for their La Coste property, including a young male secretary and five females all about 15-years-old.[58] In the winter of 1774-75, Sade, with the tacit consent of his wife, engaged in a series of orgies with his servants. Although the details are unknown, it is probable that the orgies included sexual intercourse and flagellation.[59][60] In January 1775, the families of the young females filed charges of kidnapping and seduction, and a criminal investigation commenced in Lyon. Sade's wife arranged for three of the girls to be sent to convents and one to the Abbé Sade until their wounds healed. One of the girls remained at La Coste and died of an illness a few months later. In June, Nanon Sablonnière, one of the servants involved in the La Coste orgies, quarreled with the Sades and left, finding refuge in a convent. Fearing that Nanon might provide damaging testimony, Madame de Montreuil falsely accused her of theft and successfully petitioned for a lettre de cachet. Nanon was arrested and imprisoned at Arles where she remained for over two years. In July, Sade, fearing arrest, left for Italy where he remained for a year.[61]

Treillet affair and imprisonment

In June 1776, Sade was back at La Coste writing a travel book, Voyage d'Italie. That summer, he hired three young women as servants including Catherine Treillet, age 22. In December he recruited four more servants. Three of them left after one night, claiming that Sade had offered them money for sex. They told Treillet's father and in January he went to La Coste to retrieve his daughter. He fired a pistol at Sade from point blank range but it misfired. After a second attempt to shoot him, he left and filed a complaint of kidnapping and seduction against him.[62]

Detail of Les 120 Journées de Sodome manuscript

Madame de Montreuil wrote to Sade telling him that his mother was critically ill in Paris. Sade and his wife arrived there on 8 February, 1777 to find that his mother had been dead three weeks. On 13 February, he was arrested under the existing lettre de cachet and imprisoned in the Vincennes fortress.[63]

With Sade now in custody, the parlement de Provence in Aix agreed to hear his appeal against his conviction for sodomy and poisoning. On 30 June 1778, the court overturned his conviction on poisoning and ordered a retrial on charges of debauchery and pederasty. Madame de Montreuil, wishing to avoid the disgrace of a criminal conviction in the family, sent a representative to Marseilles to bribe the prostitutes and other prospective witnesses.[64][65] On 14 July, 1778, after interrogating Sade and other witnesses, the appeals court overturned the sodomy conviction, finding him guilty of only "debauchery and immoderate libertinage." He was given a small fine and forbidden to enter Marseilles for three years. However, he was immediately re-arrested on a lettre de cachet and returned to police custody.[66] Sade escaped custody while being transferred back to Paris and he returned to La Coste. On 26 August, he was re-arrested after a police raid on his château and was returned to Vincennes prison.[67]

In prison, Sade engaged in extensive correspondence, mostly with his wife, and continued working on Voyage d'Italie and a number of plays. In the summer of 1782, he drafted Dialogue between a Priest and a Dying Man and began working on The 120 Days of Sodom. Vincennes prison was closed in February 1784 and Sade was transferred to the Bastille where he produced a fair copy of The 120 Days of Sodom which many critics consider his first major work.[68][69] Sade began working on the novel Aline and Valcour and completed the novellas The Misfortunes of Virtue (1787) and Eugenie de Franval (1788).[70] As revolutionary tension increased in Paris, Sade was outraged that his daily exercise was curtailed. On 2 July 1789, he improvised a megaphone and shouted to passers-by below that the warders were killing the prisoners. Sade was transferred to the Charenton insane asylum that evening. On 14 July, the Bastille was stormed by a revolutionary crowd and Sade's former cell was looted of his personal effects which remained there under seal. In March 1790, the National Constituent Assembly voted to abolish lettres de cachets and Sade was released from detention on 2 April.[71]

Freedom and imprisonment (1790–1801)

On Sade's release, his wife sought a legal separation and the marriage was dissolved in September 1790.[72] In August, he met Marie-Constance Quesnet, a 33-year-old actress, and they began a relationship which was to last until his death.[73] Sade now called himself "Louis Sade, man of letters" and tried to launch a career as a writer. His novel Justine, or the Misfortunes of Virtue was published anonymously in June 1791.[74] In October, his play, Oxtiern, opened at the Théâtre Molière in Paris, but closed after only two performances following audience uproar.[75]

Sade was increasingly involved in politics, at first supporting a constitutional monarchy.[76] However, as republican sentiment grew in 1792, Sade found himself in political difficulty due to his noble ancestry, public support of the monarchy and the emigration of his two sons.[77] In March, his play Le Suborneur premiered at the Théâtre Italien but only lasted one night when Jacobin activists disrupted the performance.[78] He began publicly espousing more radical republican views and became more prominent in his local revolutionary section, the Section des Piques. Following the fall of the monarchy in September 1792, he was appointed the section's commissioner on health and charitable institutions, and in October 1793 he was chosen to deliver the funeral oration for the revolutionary martyrs Marat and Le Peletier.[79] In November, his section delegated him to deliver a petition against religion to the National Convention. His speech probably alienated Robespierre and other members of the Convention and its powerful Committee of Public Safety who were attempting to suppress atheism and attacks on religion.[80][81] In December 1793, Sade was arrested and charged with "moderatism," associating with counter revolutionaries, anti-republicanism and "feigned patriotism".[82] He was listed for execution on 27 July, 1794 but was saved either by bribery or bureaucratic error. Robespierre and his supporters fell from power that day, ending the Reign of Terror and paving the way for Sade's release from prison in October.[83]

On his release, Sade concentrated on literature and his personal affairs. He published a series of anonymous novels: Philosophy in the Bedroom and Aline and Valcour (1795) and the first volumes of The New Justine and Juliette (1797-99).[84] Sade had huge debts, little income from his properties,[85] and the Vaucluse department had incorrectly placed him on its list of émigrés, leaving him vulnerable to arrest and confiscation of property.[86] In October 1796, he was forced to sell La Coste, but his former wife obtained most of the proceeds.[87] In 1798, Sade unsuccessfully petitioned Paul Barras, a leader of the Directory regime, to have his name removed from list of émigrés.[88] Sade's émigré status was finally revoked in December 1799, by which time he had fallen deeper into poverty and had registered as indigent.[89]

In October 1800, Sade published Crimes of Love, a collection of short stories published under his own name. The book received hostile reviews and a wave of articles appeared identifying Sade as the author of the scandalous Justine and Juliette.[90]

Final imprisonment and death (1801–1814)

The first page of Sade's Justine, one of the works for which he was imprisoned

The Napoleonic Consulate was cracking down on public immorality and, in March 1801, Sade was arrested at his publisher's office and detained in the Sainte-Pélagie Prison. The stocks of The New Justine and Juliette were seized and the police minister Joseph Fouché ordered Sade's detention without trial as he believed the pornography laws did not provide for sufficient punishment and any trial would only increase Sade's notoriety.[91] Following Sade's attempts to seduce young prisoners at Sainte-Pélagie, he was declared insane with "libertine dementia" and transferred to the Bicêtre Asylum.[92]

After intervention by his family, he was transferred once more to the Charenton Asylum, where his ex-wife and children agreed to pay his room and board.[93] Marie-Constance, pretending to be his illegitimate daughter, was allowed to live with him there.[94] The director of Charenton, Abbé de Coulmier, attempted to run the institution on humane principles with an emphasis on "moral treatment" in accordance with the nature of the mental illness. He allowed Sade to write, produce and perform in plays, and also encouraged balls, concerts, dinners and other entertainments. In 1805, Coulmier had a theater built on the premises with seating for about 200. The performances, which included professional actors and inmates, became fashionable, attracting many among the elite of Napoleonic society.[95]

Sade was also allowed to write. In April 1807, he completed Les journées de Florbelle, a ten-volume libertine novel. The novel was seized after a police search of Sade's and Quesnet's rooms.[96] Sade later completed three conventional novels at Charenton.[97]

Coulmier's novel approach to psychotherapy and the privileges granted to Sade attracted much opposition in official circles. In 1810, new police orders put Sade into solitary confinement and deprived him of pens and paper. Coulmier, however, gradually restored most of Sade's privileges.[98]

In 1813, the government ordered Coulmier to suspend all theatrical performances, balls and concerts.[99] By this time, Sade was in a sexual relationship with Madeleine Leclerc, the teenage daughter of an employee at Charenton. The relationship caused consternation for Quesnet and further allegations of immorality against Sade.[100][101] In September 1814, the new director of Charenton asked the Bourbon restoration government to transfer Sade to another institution.[102] Sade, however, was now seriously ill. He died on 2 December, 1814 after an attack of "prostrating gangrenous fever."[103]

Sade had left instructions in his will requesting that he be buried at his property at Malmaison without an autopsy or "pomp of any kind." However, Malmaison had been sold years earlier and Sade was buried with religious rights at Charenton. His skull was later removed from the grave for phrenological examination.[104] His surviving son, Claude-Armand, had all his remaining unpublished manuscripts burnt, including Les Journées de Florbelle.[105]

Political, religious and philosophical views

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John Phillips argues that Sade's views cannot be easily determined due to the "difficulty of distinguishing a single authorial voice" from the multitude of characters in his fiction. Even in Sade's letters he was often playing a role which leads to "the ultimate impossibility if identifying the real Sade through his writing." The arguments his characters use to justify their more extreme behavior is often satire, parody and irony.[106]

Geoffrey Gorer states that Sade was in opposition to contemporary thinkers for both his "complete and continual denial of the right to property" and for viewing the political conflict in late 18th-century France as being not between "the Crown, the bourgeoisie, the aristocracy or the clergy, or sectional interests of any of these against one another," but rather all of these "more or less united against the people." Thus, Gorer argued, "he can with some justice be called the first reasoned socialist."[107]

Peter Marshall sees Sade as a precursor to anarchism in that he was libertarian in his desire to expand human freedom and contemplated a society without laws. Ultimately, however, Sade advocated a society with minimal laws.[108]

In contrast, Maurice Lever, Laurence Louis Bongie and Francine du Plessix Gray present Sade as a political opportunist whose only consistent principles were libertinage, atheism, opposition to the death penalty and the defence of his own property and aristocratic privileges.[109][110][111] Prior to the Revolution, Sade insisted on the observance of feudal customs.[112] After the Revolution he supported the constitutional monarchy because that was the prevailing trend. Following the overthrow of the king, he publicly advocated republicanism only to protect himself from arrest as a supporter of the monarchy.[113] Gray concludes, "relentlessly opportunistic in his public stances, the ci-devant marquis ... was an unswerving moderate horrified by political excess."[114]

Albert Camus, writing in 1951, argued that Sade placed the sex drive at the centre of his thought. The sex drive is natural but a blind force that dominates man. The overthrow, in 1792, of a king ruling by divine right necessarily involved the abandonment of a system of law and morals sanctioned by God and sovereign. In its place, Sade advocated absolute moral license, allowing the passions to rule. If satisfaction of the passions involves crimes such as murder then this accords with the laws of nature, for destruction is necessary for creation. But if murder is licenced, all are at risk of being murdered. Therefore absolute freedom must entail the struggle to dominate. For Camus, Sade advocated freedom of desire for the few which required the enslavement of the majority. Sade thus prefigured totalitarianism in the name of freedom.[115]

Phillips states that Sade was greatly influenced by the materialism of La Mettrie and Holbach and by the determinism of Hume. God does not exist, and man and the universe are nothing but matter which is infinitely broken down and reconfigured, never perishing. Free will is an illusion because everything has a cause which is determined by the materialist laws of nature. The character of libertines is therefore determined by nature and it is pointless to punish them for something for which they are not morally responsible. Sade's libertines sometimes substitute nature for God, regarding it as a destructive force whose laws must be respected, but sometimes see nature as a rival to their own power.[116]

Lester Crocker argues that Sade was the first to construct "a complete system of nihilism, with all its implications, ramifications and consequences."[117] Sade believed morals are only human conventions and that individuals have a right to ignore laws and moral precepts that are contrary to the laws of nature and to pursue goals that are in accordance with nature. His libertines argue that human virtues such as charity, pity and respect for parents are against nature and should be shunned whereas murder and theft are natural passions and should be pursued.[118] For Sade, the only human value is the egotistical pursuit of the passions. The primary passion is the sex drive which is inextricably linked to passions for destruction, violence and domination.[119] For Sade's libertines, crime is not only necessary to establish and preserve their domination, it is also a pleasure in itself. They construct a hierarchy of the pleasures of crime according to which mere failure to help those in need gives the least pleasure and the torture and murder of children provide the greatest.[120]

Crocker argues that Sade anticipated Freud in positing the primacy of the sex drive and linking it to destructive impulses. However, he sees Sade's nihilism as internally inconsistent in that he derives values from nature and posits one human value, contradicting his claim that there are no objective moral laws and leaving open the possibility that other human values can be posited and moral laws derived from nature.[121]

Critical reception

Contemporary critics were generally hostile to Sade's works. When his play Oxtiern premiered in 1791, the critic for the Moniteur stated, "there is interest and energy in the play, but the role of Oxtiern is a revolting atrocity."[122] The anonymous Justine and Juliette were seen as obscene works. A review of Justine in the Journal Général de France stated that although Sade displayed "a rich and brilliant" imagination, "It is difficult to not often close the book out of disgust and indignation."[123] There were rumours that Danton and Robespierre used Justine as an aid to masturbation and to inflame their lust for blood.[124] Rétif de la Bretonne published an Anti-Justine in 1798.[125] By 1800, numerous authors were attributing Justine to Sade. One reviewer called Sade's Crimes of Love, "a detestable book written by a man suspected of having written a yet more horrible one."[126]

The mostly hostile reception continued throughout the 19th-century. The French historian Jules Michelet called Sade the "professor emeritus of crime." Although writers such as Baudelaire, Flaubert, Stendhal, Byron and Poe expressed admiration for Sade's work,[127] Swinburne found them unintentionally funny and Anatole France said, "their most dangerous ingredient is a fatal dose of boredom."[128] In 1886, the sexologist Kraft-Ebbing treated Sade's work as a compendium of sexual pathologies and gave the term sadism its clinical definition.[129]

Interest in Sade increased in the 20th-century. His biographer Laurence Louis Bongie writes, "Many different Sades have been invented over the years, and nearly always with passionate hostility towards opposing or even complementary definitions of the man."[130] In 1909, Guillaume Apollinaire called him "the freest spirit that has yet existed".[131] André Breton called him "a surrealist in Sadism" committed to "total liberation, both social and moral."[132] Others see him as a precursor to Nietzsche[133] and Freud.[134] Writing soon after World War II, Raymond Queneau argued that Sade's moral universe prefigured National-Socialism.[135]

Simone de Beauvoir in her essay "Must we burn Sade?" (published in 1951-52) argued that although Sade is a writer of the second rank and "unreadable," his value is making us rethink "the true nature of man's relationship to man."[136]

After Sade's work became freely available in unexpurgated editions in France, the United States and the United Kingdom in the 1960s, critical interest in Sade accelerated. In 1971, Roland Barthes published an influential textual analysis, Sade, Fourier, Loyola, which largely resisted psychological, social and biographical interpretations of his work.[137]

A number of prominent female commentators have praised Sade. Angela Carter, writing in 1978, argued that Sade put pornography in the service of women by claiming rights of free sexuality for them and depicting them in positions of power.[138] Camille Paglia, writing in 1990, presented Sade as a rigorous philosopher of power relationships and sexuality who was undervalued in American academia because his emphasis on violence was difficult to accept.[139] She argued that Sade could be best understood as a satirist, responding "point by point" to Rousseau's claims that society inhibits and corrupts mankind's innate goodness.[140] Annie Le Brun has praised Sade for his emphasis on sexuality and the body,[141] and has argued that Sade should be read as poetry and has been best appreciated by poets.[142]

In contrast, Andrea Dworkin writes that in Sade's fiction women are naturally prostitutes and men have a natural right to rape women. The female libertines only enjoy power as the male libertines conceive it and only as long as they adopt violent male sexuality.[143]

In 1990, Sade was published in the French Bibliothèque de la Pléiade series, which Roger Shattuck calls "an honor which corresponds to an artist being admitted into the Louvre."[144] In 2014, French novelist Pierre Guyotat said, "Sade is, in a way, our Shakespeare. He has the same sense of tragedy, the same sweeping grandeur."[145]

Andrea Dworkin, writing in 1981, condemned the veneration of Sade as a veneration of violence against women.[143] Roger Shattuck, writing in 1996, argued that writers who try to rehabilitate Sade place too much emphasis on abstract notions of transgression, linguistic play and irony and marginalize the sexual violence at the core of his life and work.[144] He stated that Sade's works are likely to be harmful to the young and "unformed minds."[146] French intellectual Michel Onfray states, "it is intellectually bizarre to make Sade a hero... Even according to his most hero-worshipping biographers, this man was a sexual delinquent".[145]

Influence

Sexual sadism disorder, a mental condition named after Sade, has been defined as experiencing sexual arousal in response to extreme pain, suffering or humiliation done non-consensually to others (as described by Sade in his novels).[147] Other terms have been used to describe the condition, which may overlap with other sexual preferences that also involve inflicting pain. It is distinct from situations where consenting individuals use mild or simulated pain or humiliation for sexual excitement.[148]

Various influential cultural figures have expressed a great interest in Sade's work, including the French philosopher Michel Foucault,[149] the American film maker John Waters[150] and the Spanish filmmaker Jesús Franco. The poet Algernon Charles Swinburne is also said to have been highly influenced by Sade.[151] Nikos Nikolaidis' 1979 film The Wretches Are Still Singing was shot in a surreal way with a predilection for the aesthetics of the Marquis de Sade; Sade is said to have influenced Romantic and Decadent authors such as Charles Baudelaire, Gustave Flaubert, and Rachilde; and to have influenced a growing popularity of nihilism in Western thought.[152] The philosopher of egoist anarchism, Max Stirner, is also speculated to have been influenced by Sade's work.[153]

Serial killer Ian Brady, who with Myra Hindley carried out torture and murder of children known as the Moors murders in England during the 1960s, was fascinated by Sade, and the suggestion was made at their trial and appeals[154] that the tortures of the children (the screams and pleadings of whom they tape-recorded) were influenced by Sade's ideas and fantasies. According to Donald Thomas, who has written a biography on Sade, Brady and Hindley had read very little of Sade's actual work; the only book of his they possessed was an anthology of excerpts that included none of his most extreme writings.[155] In the two suitcases found by the police that contained books that belonged to Brady was The Life and Ideas of the Marquis de Sade.[156] Hindley herself claimed that Brady would send her to obtain books by Sade, and that after reading them he became sexually aroused and beat her.[157]

In Philosophy in the Bedroom Sade proposed the use of induced abortion for social reasons and population control, marking the first time the subject had been discussed in public. It has been suggested that Sade's writing influenced the subsequent medical and social acceptance of abortion in Western society.[158]

Cultural depictions

Depiction of the Marquis de Sade by H. Biberstein in L'Œuvre du marquis de Sade, Guillaume Apollinaire (Edit.), Bibliothèque des Curieux, Paris, 1912
Main article: Marquis de Sade in popular culture

There have been many and varied references to the Marquis de Sade in popular culture, including fictional works and biographies. The eponym of the psychological and subcultural term sadism, his name is used variously to evoke sexual violence, licentiousness, and freedom of speech.[159] In modern culture his works are simultaneously viewed as masterful analyses of how power and economics work, and as erotica.[160] It could be argued that Sade's sexually explicit works were a medium for the articulation but also for the exposure of the corrupt and hypocritical values of the elite in his society, and that it was primarily this inconvenient and embarrassing satire that led to his long-term detention. With this view, he becomes a symbol of the artist's struggle with the censor and that of the moral philosopher with the constraints of conventional morality. Sade's use of pornographic devices to create provocative works that subvert the prevailing moral values of his time inspired many other artists in a variety of media. The cruelties depicted in his works gave rise to the concept of sadism. Sade's works have to this day been kept alive by certain artists and intellectuals because they themselves espouse a philosophy of extreme individualism.[161] But Sade's life was lived in flat contradiction and breach of Kant's injunction to treat others as ends in themselves and never merely as means to an agent's own ends.

In the late 20th century, there was a resurgence of interest in Sade; leading French intellectuals like Roland Barthes, Jacques Lacan, Jacques Derrida, and Michel Foucault[162] to publish studies of the philosopher, and interest in Sade among scholars and artists continued.[159] In the realm of visual arts, many surrealist artists had an interest in the "Divine Marquis." Sade was celebrated in surrealist periodicals, and feted by figures such as Guillaume Apollinaire, Paul Éluard, and Maurice Heine; Man Ray admired Sade because he and other surrealists viewed him as an ideal of freedom.[161] The first Manifesto of Surrealism (1924) announced that "Sade is surrealist in sadism", and extracts of the original draft of Justine were published in Le Surréalisme au service de la révolution.[163] In literature, Sade is referenced in several stories by horror and science fiction writer (and author of Psycho) Robert Bloch, while Polish science fiction author Stanisław Lem wrote an essay analyzing the game theory arguments appearing in Sade's Justine.[164] The writer Georges Bataille applied Sade's methods of writing about sexual transgression to shock and provoke readers.[161]

Sade's life and works have been the subject of numerous fictional plays, films, pornographic or erotic drawings, etchings, and more. These include Peter Weiss's play Marat/Sade, a fantasia extrapolating from the fact that Sade directed plays performed by his fellow inmates at the Charenton asylum.[165] Yukio Mishima, Barry Yzereef, and Doug Wright also wrote plays about Sade; Weiss's and Wright's plays have been made into films. His work is referenced on film at least as early as Luis Buñuel's L'Âge d'Or (1930), the final segment of which provides a coda to 120 Days of Sodom, with the four debauched noblemen emerging from their mountain retreat. In 1969, American International Films released a German-made production called de Sade, with Keir Dullea in the title role. Pier Paolo Pasolini filmed Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975), updating Sade's novel to the brief Salò Republic; in 1989, Henri Xhonneux and Roland Topor made Marquis, which was partially based on the memoirs of de Sade;[166].

Sadeness (Part I) is a 1990 hit song by German musical project Enigma that is a sensual track, purportedly based around "questioning" the sexual desires of Marquis de Sade.

Benoît Jacquot's Sade and Philip Kaufman's Quills (from the play of the same name by Doug Wright) both hit cinemas in 2000. Quills, inspired by Sade's imprisonment and battles with the censorship in his society,[161] portrays him (Geoffrey Rush) as a literary freedom fighter who is a martyr to the cause of free expression.[167] Sade is a 2000 French film directed by Benoît Jacquot starring Daniel Auteuil as the Marquis de Sade, which was adapted by Jacques Fieschi and Bernard Minoret from the novel La terreur dans le boudoir by Serge Bramly.

Often Sade himself has been depicted in American popular culture less as a revolutionary or even as a libertine and more akin to a sadistic, tyrannical villain. For example, in the final episode of the television series Friday the 13th: The Series, Micki, the female protagonist, travels back in time and ends up being imprisoned and tortured by Sade. Similarly, in the horror film Waxwork, Sade is among the film's wax villains to come alive.

While not personally depicted, Sade's writings feature prominently in the novel Too Like the Lightning, first book in the Terra Ignota sequence written by Ada Palmer. Palmer's depiction of 25th-century Earth relies heavily on the philosophies and prominent figureheads of the Enlightenment, such as Voltaire and Denis Diderot in addition to Sade, and in the book the narrator Mycroft, after showing his fictional "reader" a sex scene formulated off of Sade's own, takes this imaginary reader's indignation as an opportunity to delve into Sade's ideas. Additionally, one of the central locations in the novel, a brothel advertising itself as a "bubble of the 18th century", features an inscription over the proprietor's door dedicating the establishment as a temple to Sade, an homage to Voltaire's "Le Temple du goût, par M. de Voltaire."

Writing

Literary criticism

The Marquis de Sade viewed Gothic fiction as a genre that relied heavily on magic and phantasmagoria. In his literary criticism Sade sought to prevent his fiction from being labeled "Gothic" by emphasizing Gothic's supernatural aspects as the fundamental difference from themes in his own work. But while he sought this separation he believed the Gothic played a necessary role in society and discussed its roots and its uses. He wrote that the Gothic novel was a perfectly natural, predictable consequence of the revolutionary sentiments in Europe. He theorized that the adversity of the period had rightfully caused Gothic writers to "look to hell for help in composing their alluring novels." Sade held the work of writers Matthew Lewis and Ann Radcliffe high above other Gothic authors, praising the brilliant imagination of Radcliffe and pointing to Lewis' The Monk as without question the genre's best achievement. Sade nevertheless believed that the genre was at odds with itself, arguing that the supernatural elements within Gothic fiction created an inescapable dilemma for both its author and its readers. He argued that an author in this genre was forced to choose between elaborate explanations of the supernatural or no explanation at all and that in either case the reader was unavoidably rendered incredulous. Despite his celebration of The Monk, Sade believed that there was not a single Gothic novel that had been able to overcome these problems, and that a Gothic novel that did would be universally regarded for its excellence in fiction.[168]

Many assume that Sade's criticism of the Gothic novel is a reflection of his frustration with sweeping interpretations of works like Justine. Within his objections to the lack of verisimilitude in the Gothic may have been an attempt to present his own work as the better representation of the whole nature of man. Since Sade professed that the ultimate goal of an author should be to deliver an accurate portrayal of man, it is believed that Sade's attempts to separate himself from the Gothic novel highlights this conviction. For Sade, his work was best suited for the accomplishment of this goal in part because he was not chained down by the supernatural silliness that dominated late 18th-century fiction.[169] Moreover, it is believed that Sade praised The Monk (which displays Ambrosio's sacrifice of his humanity to his unrelenting sexual appetite) as the best Gothic novel chiefly because its themes were the closest to those within his own work.[170]

Libertine novels

Sade's fiction has been classified under different genres, including pornography, Gothic, and baroque. Sade's most famous books are often classified not as Gothic but as libertine novels, and include the novels Justine, or the Misfortunes of Virtue; Juliette; The 120 Days of Sodom; and Philosophy in the Bedroom. These works challenge traditional perceptions of sexuality, religion, law, age, and gender. His fictional portrayals of sexual violence and sadism stunned even those contemporaries of Sade who were quite familiar with the dark themes of the Gothic novel during its popularity in the late 18th century. Suffering is the primary rule, as in these novels one must often decide between sympathizing with the torturer or the victim. While these works focus on the dark side of human nature, the magic and phantasmagoria that dominates the Gothic is noticeably absent and is the primary reason these works are not considered to fit the genre.[171]

Through the unreleased passions of his libertines, Sade wished to shake the world at its core. With 120 Days, for example, Sade wished to present "the most impure tale that has ever been written since the world exists."[172] Despite his literary attempts at evil, his characters and stories often fell into repetition of sexual acts and philosophical justifications. Simone de Beauvoir and Georges Bataille have argued that the repetitive form of his libertine novels, though hindering the artfulness of his prose, ultimately strengthened his individualist arguments.[173][174] The repetitive and obsessive nature of the account of Justine's abuse and frustration in her strivings to be a good Christian living a virtuous and pure life may on a superficial reading seem tediously excessive. Paradoxically, however, Sade checks the reader's instinct to treat them as laughable cheap pornography and obscenity by knowingly and artfully interweaving the tale of her trials with extended reflections on individual and social morality.

Short fiction

In The Crimes of Love, subtitled "Heroic and Tragic Tales", Sade combines romance and horror, employing several Gothic tropes for dramatic purposes. There is blood, banditti, corpses, and of course insatiable lust. Compared to works like Justine, here Sade is relatively tame, as overt eroticism and torture is subtracted for a more psychological approach. It is the impact of sadism instead of acts of sadism itself that emerge in this work, unlike the aggressive and rapacious approach in his libertine works.[170] The modern volume entitled Gothic Tales collects a variety of other short works of fiction intended to be included in Sade's Contes et Fabliaux d'un Troubadour Provençal du XVIII Siecle.

An example is "Eugénie de Franval", a tale of incest and retribution. In its portrayal of conventional moralities it is something of a departure from the erotic cruelties and moral ironies that dominate his libertine works. It opens with a domesticated approach:

To enlighten mankind and improve its morals is the only lesson which we offer in this story. In reading it, may the world discover how great is the peril which follows the footsteps of those who will stop at nothing to satisfy their desires.

Descriptions in Justine seem to anticipate Radcliffe's scenery in The Mysteries of Udolpho and the vaults in The Italian, but, unlike these stories, there is no escape for Sade's virtuous heroine, Justine. Unlike the milder Gothic fiction of Radcliffe, Sade's protagonist is brutalized throughout and dies tragically. To have a character like Justine, who is stripped without ceremony and bound to a wheel for fondling and thrashing, would be unthinkable in the domestic Gothic fiction written for the bourgeoisie. Sade even contrives a kind of affection between Justine and her tormentors, suggesting shades of masochism in his heroine.[175]

Legacy

The Château de Lacoste above Lacoste, a residence of Sade; currently the site of theatre festivals

For many years, Sade's descendants regarded his life and work as a scandal to be suppressed. This did not change until the mid-20th century, when the Comte Xavier de Sade reclaimed the marquis title, long fallen into disuse,[176] and took an interest in his ancestor's writings. At that time, the "divine marquis" of legend was so unmentionable in his own family that Xavier de Sade learned of him only in the late 1940s when approached by a journalist.[176] He subsequently discovered a store of Sade's papers in the family château at Condé-en-Brie, and worked with scholars for decades to enable their publication.[2] His youngest son, the Marquis Thibault de Sade, has continued the collaboration. The family have also claimed a trademark on the name.[177] The family sold the Château de Condé in 1983.[178] As well as the manuscripts they retain, others are held in universities and libraries. Many, however, were lost in the 18th and 19th centuries. A substantial number were destroyed after Sade's death at the instigation of his son, Donatien-Claude-Armand.[179]

The castle of the Marquis in Lubéron was purchased and partially restored by Pierre Cardin,[180][181] including commissioning a surrealist bronze art work by Alexander Bourganov as a memorial. In the late 1940s at another de Sade family property, the Château de Condé, descendants discovered a cache of the Marquis's papers behind a bricked-up wall in the attic: they had been hidden by earlier ashamed members of the family.[182] This chateau was sold by the family in 1983; however some personal items from the discovery continue to be owned by family members.[182] A descendant, Hugues, Comte de Sade sells bronze replicas of the Marquis's skull.[183]

Bibliography

Further information: Marquis de Sade bibliography

See also

References

  1. ^ Sade, Marquis de (1999). Seaver, Richard (ed.). Letters from Prison. New York: Arcade Publishing. ISBN 978-1559704113.
  2. ^ a b Perrottet, Tony (February 2015). "Who Was the Marquis de Sade?". Smithsonian Magazine. Archived from the original on 12 June 2018. Retrieved 25 January 2015.
  3. ^ Phillips, John (2005). How to Read Sade. New York: W. W. Norton and Company. p. 1. ISBN 0-393-32822-8.
  4. ^ Marshall, Peter (2008). Demanding the impossible: a history of Anarchism. Oakland: PM Press. p. 145. ISBN 978-1-60486-064-1.
  5. ^ Phillips (2005), p. 22
  6. ^ Bongie, Laurence-Louis (1998). Sade: A Biographical Essay. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. pp. 293–294. ISBN 0-226-06420-4.
  7. ^ Marshall, Peter (2008). Demanding the impossible: a history of Anarchism. Oakland: PM Press. pp. 143–49. ISBN 978-1-60486-064-1.
  8. ^ Phillips (2005), pp. 116–117
  9. ^ Phillips (2005), p. 118
  10. ^ Dworken, Andrea (1981). Pornography: Men Possessing Women. London: The Women's Press. pp. 94–95, 98–100. ISBN 0-7043-3876-9.
  11. ^ Shattuck, Roger (1996). Forbidden Knowledge: from Prometheus to pornography. New York: St Martin's Press. pp. 292–93, 298–99. ISBN 0-312-14602-7.
  12. ^ Lever, Maurice (1993). Marquis de Sade, a biography. Translated by Goldhammer, Arthur. London: Harper Collins. pp. 13–33. ISBN 0-246-13666-9.
  13. ^ Lever (1993). p. 33
  14. ^ Schaeffer (1999), p. 7
  15. ^ Lever (1993). pp. 36-40
  16. ^ Lever (1993). p. 49
  17. ^ a b Schaeffer (1999), pp. 7–11
  18. ^ Lever (1993). pp. 51-52
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  22. ^ Lever (1993). pp. 60-61
  23. ^ a b c Hayman, Ronald (2003). Marquis de Sade: The Genius of Passion. New York City: Tauris Parke Paperbacks. ISBN 978-1860648946.
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  72. ^ Schaeffer, Neil (2000). The Marquis de Sade: a life. Harvard: Harvard University Press. p. 406. ISBN 0-674-00392-6.
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  89. ^ Lever (1993). p. 506
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  95. ^ Lever (1993). pp. 523-28
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  100. ^ Lever (1993). pp. 559-61
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  127. ^ Phillips (2005), p. 3
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  129. ^ Bongie (1998), pp. 289–90
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  135. ^ Bongie (1998), p. 294
  136. ^ Bongie (1998), p. 295
  137. ^ Bongie (1998), p. 297
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  142. ^ Bongie (1998), p. 298
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Notes

Further reading

  • Sade's Sensibilities. (2014) edited by Kate Parker and Norbert Sclippa (A collection of essays reflecting on Sade's influence on his bicentennial anniversary.)
  • Forbidden Knowledge: From Prometheus to Pornography. (1994) by Roger Shattuck (Provides a sound philosophical introduction to Sade and his writings.)
  • Pour Sade. (2006) by Norbert Sclippa
  • Marquis de Sade: his life and works. (1899) by Iwan Bloch
  • Sade Mon Prochain. (1947) by Pierre Klossowski
  • Lautréamont and Sade. (1949) by Maurice Blanchot
  • The Marquis de Sade, a biography. (1961) by Gilbert Lély
  • Philosopher of Evil: The Life and Works of the Marquis de Sade. (1962) by Walter Drummond
  • The Life and Ideas of the Marquis de Sade. (1963) by Geoffrey Gorer
  • Sade, Fourier, Loyola. (1971) by Roland Barthes
  • De Sade: A Critical Biography. (1978) by Ronald Hayman
  • The Sadeian Woman: An Exercise in Cultural History. (1979) by Angela Carter
  • The Marquis de Sade: the man, his works, and his critics: an annotated bibliography. (1986) by Colette Verger Michael
  • Sade, his ethics and rhetoric. (1989) collection of essays, edited by Colette Verger Michael
  • Marquis de Sade: A Biography. (1991) by Maurice Lever
  • The philosophy of the Marquis de Sade. (1995) by Timo Airaksinen
  • Dark Eros: The Imagination of Sadism. (1996) by Thomas Moore (spiritual writer)
  • Sade contre l'Être suprême. (1996) by Philippe Sollers
  • A Fall from Grace (1998) by Chris Barron
  • Sade: A Biographical Essay (1998) by Laurence Louis Bongie
  • An Erotic Beyond: Sade. (1998) by Octavio Paz
  • The Marquis de Sade: a life. (1999) by Neil Schaeffer
  • At Home With the Marquis de Sade: A Life. (1999) by Francine du Plessix Gray
  • Sade: A Sudden Abyss. (2001) by Annie Le Brun
  • Sade: from materialism to pornography. (2002) by Caroline Warman
  • Marquis de Sade: the genius of passion. (2003) by Ronald Hayman
  • Marquis de Sade: A Very Short Introduction (2005) by John Phillips
  • The Dangerous Memoir of Citizen Sade (2000) by A. C. H. Smith (A biographical novel)
  • Outsider Biographies; Savage, de Sade, Wainewright, Ned Kelly, Billy the Kid, Rimbaud and Genet: Base Crime and High Art in Biography and Bio-Fiction, 1744–2000 (2014) by Ian H. Magedera
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