Letters from prison

The 1990s have seen a resurgence of interest in the Marquis de Sade, with several biographies competing to put their version of his life story before the public. But Sadean scholar Richard Seaver takes us directly to the source, translating Sade's prison correspondence. Seaver's translations retain the aristocratic hauteur of Sade's prose, which still possesses a clarity that any reader can appreciate. "When will my horrible situation cease?" he wrote to his wife shortly after his incarceration began in 1777. "When in God's name will I be let out of the tomb where I have been buried alive? There is nothing to equal the horror of my fate!" But he was never reduced to pleading for long, and not always so solicitous of his wife's feelings; a few years later, he would write, "This morning I received a fat letter from you that seemed endless. Please, I beg of you, don't go on at such length: do you believe that I have nothing better to do than to read your endless repetitions?" For... "This volume of Sade's correspondence from prison covers a thirteen-year period, from 1777 when he was incarcerated in the Vincennes fortress near Paris, to 1789 when he was transferred from the Bastille shortly before it was stormed at the outset of the French Revolution, to the Charenton insane asylum, from which he was finally freed on April 2 - Good Friday - 1790. From ever danker and drearier cells, even as his health declined with each passing year, Sade wrote with supreme eloquence and increasing bitterness about the harsh conditions he was forced to endure, using his pen as a deadly weapon to lash out at his tormentors."--BOOK JACKET. A collection of letters written from prison by the Marquis de Sade. They are principally written to his beloved (and devoted) wife and to his hated mother-in-law, Madame la presidente de Montreuil. They offer insights into society, religion, morals, politics, and his fellow men - and women.