Justine (Harper Perennial Forbidden Classics)
By (Author) Marquis De Sade
HarperCollins Publishers
HarperPerennial
21st May 2009
United Kingdom
General
Fiction
843.6
Paperback
224
Width 111mm, Height 178mm, Spine 14mm
120g
Justine was the Marquis de Sade's first novella, written in 1787, whilst imprisoned for two weeks in the Bastille. Although published anonymously, de Sade was eventually indicted for blasphemy and obscenity (without trial) for the authorship of Justine at the behest of Napoleon Bonaparte.
Who suffers in the pursuit of desire
The Countess de Lorsange reveals her history, in a tavern, to a young woman named Therese; where a young girl and her sister fight a battle of morality. Set in a period before the French Revolution, Justine shows the battle of virtue versus vice, where earning your keep takes on fresh connotations, and a titled lady holds a lifetime of illicit secrets.
The Marquis de Sade was a French aristocrat, revolutionary, and writer of violent pornography. Incarcerated for 32 years of his life (in prisons and asylums), the majority of his output was written from behind bars. Famed for his graphic depiction of cruelty within classic titles such as 'Crimes of Love' and 'One Hundred Days of Sodom', de Sade's name was adopted as a clinical term for the sexual fetish known as 'Sadism'.