Guillaume Apollinaire (1880-1918), a rebel poet and general catalyst for the Paris avant-garde of his time, is often regarded as the spiritual forefather of Surrealism (it was he who, in fact, coined the term "surrealist” in 1917). In the early 1900s he began work at the Enfer section of the French national library, a forbidden section reserved for "banned” books, usually of a pornographic nature. Here Apollinaire became familiar with the suppressed works of writers such as Restif de la Bretonne, André Robert Andréa de Nerciat, and above all, the Marquis de Sade. In 1909 he published L'Oeuvre du Marquis de Sade, his famous monograph on Sade and his works (reprinted under the title "The Divine Marquis” in the 1964 Gallimard anthology Les Diables Amoureux). In this ground-breaking treatise, Apollinaire not only documented Sade's literary output, but also helped to establish the writer's revolutionary profile, calling him the "freest spirit who ever lived” and predicting his immense future influence on 20th century literature and thought. ‘The Divine Marquis” is here published in its first-ever English translation, revealing it to be a key work for all those interested in the Marquis de Sade, his writings, and his life, and also of vital interest to those studying Apollinaire and his influence on 20th century literature and literary theory.

Against a magnificently embroidered backdrop of 18th-century France, Schaeffer shows us Sade's incredible life of sexual appetite, adherence to Enlightenment principles, imprisonment, scandal, and above all inexhaustible imagination.

"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"--

The Marquis de Sade (1740-1814), best known for his violent, erotic novels, such as 120 Days of Sodom and Justine, was also one of the key inspirational figures identified by Andr Breton in his Surrealist Manifestos. De Sade's importance to the Surrealists and their close affiliates is reflected in the sheer volume of art and writing dedicated to, or inspired by, his life, philosophy, and writings. Sade documents this body of Surrealist work, including many key texts and bizarre and erotic images never before assembled in one volume. Included in Sade are more than fifty rarely seen transgressive illustrations by some of the most famous names associated with Surrealism, including Dal , Hans Bellmer, Magritte, Andr Masson, and Man Ray. The book also features analytical texts by writers of the period such as Bataille, Breton, Bunuel, Eluard, and Klossowski. Also included is the first-ever English translation of "The Divine Marquis" by Guillaume Apollinaire, which was the first modernist appraisal of Sade and remains one of the best concise biographies of its subject, and "Sade and the Roman Noir" by scholar Maurice Heine, in which Heine posits Sade as inventor of the gothic novel. Putting the works in context is an extensive history by editor Candice Black that details the relationship between the Surrealists and Sade.

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.

Revered by Enlightenment and Victorian thinkers, de Sade was recognized as a founding father by the Surrealists, and holds a prominent place in the history of modernism and post-modernism. This selection of his early writings, some appearing in English translation for the first time, revealsthe full range of his sobering moods and considerable talents.

The 120 Days of Sodom by Marquis de Sade relates the story of four wealthy men who enslave 24 mostly teenaged victims and sexually torture them while listening to stories told by old prostitutes. The book was written while Sade was imprisoned in the Bastille and the manuscript was lost during the storming of the Bastille. Sade wrote that he "wept tears of blood" over the manuscript's loss. Many consider this to be Sade crowing acheivement.

The libertine philosophy of the notorious Marquis de Sade, one of the most infamous and hated men in all of history, gave birth to the classic story of Justine, or "The Misfortunes of Virtue," a tale replete with brutal tragedy befalling the seemingly cursed existence of a pure, chaste, and virtuous girl. The cynical Sade uses this immorality play to expound upon his philosophy of Darwinian struggle and nihilistic moral futility. His rakish, bawdy, and bizarre short "histories" also give to the reader a taste of the venomous and troubled imaginings of this exceptional, deranged mind; while, revealing a comic and grotesque, even child-like side to the Divine Marquis that many may not have ever been aware of. A wonderful collection of his writings for those just beginning to explore this mad, controversial, and thoroughly brilliant man of letters. Published by Zem Books.

The Marchesa Luisa Casati was Europe's most notorious celebrity, and its most eccentric. For the first three decades of the twentieth century she astounded the continent. Nude servants gilded in gold leafs attended her; bizarre wax mannequins sat as guests at her dining table; and she wore live snakes as jewellery. Among those she captivated were Man Ray, Augustus John, Jean Cocteau, Cecil Beaton and Jack Kerouac. Some became lovers, others awestruck admirers, but all were influenced by this extraordinary muse. Explored in detail for the first time, this is the story of the Marchesa Luisa Casati.