The 120 Days of Sodom and other writings, Marquise De Sade, compiled and translated by Austryn Wainhouse and Richard Seaver, introductions by Simone de Beauvoir & Pierre Klossowski (Grove Press, Inc., New York, 1966 [first edition, first printing])
9 1/8″ X 6 1/4′, xii+799pp, hardbound with DJ protected by mylar, very good condition
Marquis de Sade wrote Les 120 journ_es de Sodome or l’_cole du libertinage (The 120 Days of Sodom, or the School of Libertinism [Licentiousness]) in the space of thirty-seven days while he was imprisoned in the Bastille. Being short of writing materials and fearing confiscation, he wrote it in tiny writing on a continuous, twelve-metre long roll of paper. When the Bastille was stormed and looted on July 14, 1789 during the height of the French Revolution, Sade believed the work was lost forever and later wrote that he “wept tears of blood” over its loss. Hidden in his former cell thus escaping the attention of looters, the roll of paper did survive, and the 120 Day of Sodom was first published in 1904 by the Berlin dermatologist and “sexologist” Iwan Bloch. This book also contains “Reflections on the Novel” (1800), “Villeterque’s Review of Les Crimes de l’Amour” (1803), Florville and Courval or The Works of Fate” (1788), and two theater pieces, “Oxtiern, or The Misfortunes of Libertinage” (1800) and “Ernestine, A Swedish Tale” (1788)
