The 120 Days of Sodom and Other Writings

These were the eight principal characters in whose company we are going to enable you to live, good reader. It is now time to divulge the object of singular pleasures that were proposed. It is commonly accepted amongst authentic libertines that the sensations communicated by the organs of hearing are the most flattering and those impressions are the liveliest; as a consequence, our four villains, who were of a mind to have voluptuousness implant itself in the very core of their beings as deeply and as overwhelmingly as ever it could penetrate, had, to this end, devised something quite clever indeed. It was this: after having immured themselves within everything that was best able to satisfy the senses through lust, after having established this situation, the plan was to have described to them, in the greatest detail and in due order, every one of debauchery’s extravagances, all its divagations, all its ramifications, all its contingencies, all of what is termed in libertine language its passions. There is simply no conceiving the degree to which man varies them when his imagination grows inflamed; excessive may be the differences between men that is created by all their other manias, by all their other tastes, but in this case it is even more so, and he who should succeed in isolating and categorizing and detailing these follies would perhaps perform one of the most splendid labors which might be undertaken in the study of manners, and perhaps one of the most interesting.

Introduced by Simone de Beauvoir’s landmark essay, ‘Must We Burn Sade?’ Unique in its enduring capacity to shock and provoke, ‘The 120 Days of Sodom’ must stand as one of the most controversial books ever written. Edition includes ‘Oxtiern, or The Misfortunes of Libertinage’ and ‘Ernestine’. Compiled and translated by Austryn Wainhouse and Richard Seaver. With introductions by Simone de Beauvoir and Pierre Klossowski.