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Marquis de Sade: A Biography
To some the Marquis de Sade was a monster, to others an apostle of sexual freedom and a literary genius. Lever reconstructs the life of the "divine marquis" in all its splendor and perversity. Named a Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year and a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. Index. Translated by Arthur Goldhammer.
626 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1991
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
April 22, 2009
An excellent and reliable biography, which treats the man sympathetically, but as a recognizable type, phallically obsessed and tortured by a great intellect equally distorted. The real power of this book is its illumination of his time of transformation, and all the distortions revealed in the institutions which defined this man, and which may remain as perverse as was his response: the Church, the State, the Revolution. This book exceeds its subject for direct and unrelenting honesty, and even truth.
June 18, 2015
Considering that the subject of this book is a guy who liked to be sodomized with candlesticks and masturbate with crucifixes while feeding spanish fly to prostitutes to make them flatulent, it's surprising to find that both the book and the Marquis de Sade are both wildly unremarkable.
Sure, de Sade had those two or three famous scandals, detailed above and he wrote some pretty funny pornographic philosophy, but beyond that, he was utterly dullsville. His life simply just wasn't really the stuff of monstrous libidos carving leather swathes across 18th century France. He was kind of a dullard, his correspondence was mediocre, and he spent much of what could have been his most creative (read: sexually deviant) period in various prisons.
It's not really Lever's fault. He tries to wring what he can out of a life so counter-intuitively banal that one'd be shocked that such a guy as de Sade would have sexual unorthodoxies named after him. But the book does get bogged down in stuff that any but the most rigid, pulsing de Sade afficionado will find impenetrable and dull. The day-to-day doings and musings of the guy just aren't exciting at all.
Sure, de Sade had those two or three famous scandals, detailed above and he wrote some pretty funny pornographic philosophy, but beyond that, he was utterly dullsville. His life simply just wasn't really the stuff of monstrous libidos carving leather swathes across 18th century France. He was kind of a dullard, his correspondence was mediocre, and he spent much of what could have been his most creative (read: sexually deviant) period in various prisons.
It's not really Lever's fault. He tries to wring what he can out of a life so counter-intuitively banal that one'd be shocked that such a guy as de Sade would have sexual unorthodoxies named after him. But the book does get bogged down in stuff that any but the most rigid, pulsing de Sade afficionado will find impenetrable and dull. The day-to-day doings and musings of the guy just aren't exciting at all.
June 26, 2024
* ' cherish the day' - ' the sweetest taboo'... Sade Abu , lol
June 14, 2025
A well written and exciting to read book if you are into literary lunatics.
August 7, 2011
PROS: This is a very well-researched book. The author, Maurice Lever, went thru great pains to find the journals, notes, letters upon this book was created. Then he delves deep into the recesses and reads between the lines to verify if the information in the letters was true to life. For example, when Sade cries in his letters for more money and says he is desperately poor, the Lever tells us that in reality, Sade was not so bad off, that Sade exaggerated his condition., and reminds us that it is Sade's character to constantly beg and we shouldn't believe his letters outright.
CON: This is a ridiculously long book. A total of 568 pages of reading (notes and biblio take an additional 58 pages). I read it every night for 20 min and needed almost 2 months to finish it. It is tedious, full of minor details in letter that are irrelevant and hinder the progress of learning about Sade's life. This entire book cold have been shortened into 200 pages. And it's NOT easy reading. The translation from French into English, makes the sentences long, cryptic, and nonsensical. Even after reading and re-reading Sade's letter or Lever's text I STILL don't understand what he meant. Too many negatives upon negatives and that make for a confusing letter. Even if Lever wanted to include the original Sade's letter, as Sade wrote it (confusing and all), then he should have summarized it in one or two sentences below. What Lever does wrong, is include 1.5 book pages (sometimes 3 full pages) letters and just Expect you to understand. Then he goes to the next part. INSTEAD what Lever should have done is include one or two sentences that stand out from the letter and summarize the rest. Then he should have connected it to the greater context. They just don't make sense. Lever does NOT connect the letter to the situation.
CON: Another great gripe of mine is that Lever uses different names for the same person without telling you IT IS THE SAME PERSON. So when you first start reading book you think he's talking about different people. He does this ALL throughout the book and you had to go back and froth over and over just to VERIFY in your OWN head, he was referring to the once and same person. For example, Lever first refers to his mother-in-law as "Mme de Montreuil" then he talks about "la Presidente", but it isn't until 5 pages later that you realize it's the same PERSON. He does this all throughout the book with OTHER people. It's just NOT GOOD WRITING.
TO SUMMARIZE: Good Research, horrible explanations, bad use of names. The book is WAY too long.
PS.. There is NO Erotica in this book, and the only "sex" and "torture" that Sade did, spans about 5 pages out of the book. The rest is social politics and french history.
CON: This is a ridiculously long book. A total of 568 pages of reading (notes and biblio take an additional 58 pages). I read it every night for 20 min and needed almost 2 months to finish it. It is tedious, full of minor details in letter that are irrelevant and hinder the progress of learning about Sade's life. This entire book cold have been shortened into 200 pages. And it's NOT easy reading. The translation from French into English, makes the sentences long, cryptic, and nonsensical. Even after reading and re-reading Sade's letter or Lever's text I STILL don't understand what he meant. Too many negatives upon negatives and that make for a confusing letter. Even if Lever wanted to include the original Sade's letter, as Sade wrote it (confusing and all), then he should have summarized it in one or two sentences below. What Lever does wrong, is include 1.5 book pages (sometimes 3 full pages) letters and just Expect you to understand. Then he goes to the next part. INSTEAD what Lever should have done is include one or two sentences that stand out from the letter and summarize the rest. Then he should have connected it to the greater context. They just don't make sense. Lever does NOT connect the letter to the situation.
CON: Another great gripe of mine is that Lever uses different names for the same person without telling you IT IS THE SAME PERSON. So when you first start reading book you think he's talking about different people. He does this ALL throughout the book and you had to go back and froth over and over just to VERIFY in your OWN head, he was referring to the once and same person. For example, Lever first refers to his mother-in-law as "Mme de Montreuil" then he talks about "la Presidente", but it isn't until 5 pages later that you realize it's the same PERSON. He does this all throughout the book with OTHER people. It's just NOT GOOD WRITING.
TO SUMMARIZE: Good Research, horrible explanations, bad use of names. The book is WAY too long.
PS.. There is NO Erotica in this book, and the only "sex" and "torture" that Sade did, spans about 5 pages out of the book. The rest is social politics and french history.
May 4, 2014
As I struggled to read the difficult, often explicit subject matter (in part due to the hard-to-pronounce French names and unfamiliar Latin terminology ), I got a crippling headache, and a sense that I was somehow degrading myself by my choice of book. Which I suppose would please the book's subject.
November 8, 2023
A substantial door stopper of a book. In depth and meticulously researched. Somehow, it was just too long: it felt like watching a reel of film of the Marquis’s life slowly unwind before my eyes. Note however, there are no illustrations of any kind within this tome. I feel a sense of relief having finished it. Whilst finding it an oppressive and somewhat depressing experience – it had to be done!
Donatien de Sade’s life (1740-1814) spanned the dying throes of the ancien regime, the revolution, Napoleon I’s empire and the restoration of monarchy. Chameleon - like, the Marquis adapted to change - as a skilled actor would - and the stage was de Sade’s metier.
Born into the lesser nobility, he was very conscious of his heritage and lineage. He made this clear upon his father’s death when he inherited the family estates. His immediate predecessors had dispensed with ancient ceremony - involving the new lord picking up the reins and his tenants and assorted peasants bowing and scraping to him. Not so Donatien! He insisted on all the bells and whistles. It is hard therefore not to see him as a true child of the old order and a monarchist. But, come the Revolution, this erstwhile noble donned his red cap and became citizen Sade, a prominent figure in his Section of Paris. He was a survivor! If that meant lying through his teeth to keep his head on his shoulders – he considered it a small price to pay.
Indulged as a child, yet emotionally starved perhaps? He grew up lacking any sense of self discipline (apart, that is, from self flagellation - but that was more fun administered by another anyway). His wife indulged him and their marriage was a tad unconventional, to say the very least! But I am in danger of spoiling..
“The divine Marquis”, as he became known posthumously to his select followers (including the poet Swinburne) spent a significant part of his adult life incarcerated in prisons/hospitals/asylums- for the “good” of Society. Successive regimes didn’t really know what to do with him. He was deemed a corrupter of public morals, which is hard to dispute. His literary output alone – Justine, Juliette, 120 Days of Sodom etc, etc..was condemnation enough. In addition, he practised what he preached whenever he saw the chance. This was too much, even for an already corrupt and degenerate society. To make matters worse, he was an avowed atheist. After the fall of the monarchy this could be tolerated. His line in blasphemy was a different matter though and the use he found for religious artefacts, whilst highly imaginative was in very questionable taste.
No friend of the Second Estate, yet he was appalled by the brutal massacres of the clergy during the great Terror and, supreme irony: for someone who gave his name to the practice of ‘sadism’ he was totally opposed to capital punishment.
It has left me much to ponder upon. Now for some good fresh air!!
Donatien de Sade’s life (1740-1814) spanned the dying throes of the ancien regime, the revolution, Napoleon I’s empire and the restoration of monarchy. Chameleon - like, the Marquis adapted to change - as a skilled actor would - and the stage was de Sade’s metier.
Born into the lesser nobility, he was very conscious of his heritage and lineage. He made this clear upon his father’s death when he inherited the family estates. His immediate predecessors had dispensed with ancient ceremony - involving the new lord picking up the reins and his tenants and assorted peasants bowing and scraping to him. Not so Donatien! He insisted on all the bells and whistles. It is hard therefore not to see him as a true child of the old order and a monarchist. But, come the Revolution, this erstwhile noble donned his red cap and became citizen Sade, a prominent figure in his Section of Paris. He was a survivor! If that meant lying through his teeth to keep his head on his shoulders – he considered it a small price to pay.
Indulged as a child, yet emotionally starved perhaps? He grew up lacking any sense of self discipline (apart, that is, from self flagellation - but that was more fun administered by another anyway). His wife indulged him and their marriage was a tad unconventional, to say the very least! But I am in danger of spoiling..
“The divine Marquis”, as he became known posthumously to his select followers (including the poet Swinburne) spent a significant part of his adult life incarcerated in prisons/hospitals/asylums- for the “good” of Society. Successive regimes didn’t really know what to do with him. He was deemed a corrupter of public morals, which is hard to dispute. His literary output alone – Justine, Juliette, 120 Days of Sodom etc, etc..was condemnation enough. In addition, he practised what he preached whenever he saw the chance. This was too much, even for an already corrupt and degenerate society. To make matters worse, he was an avowed atheist. After the fall of the monarchy this could be tolerated. His line in blasphemy was a different matter though and the use he found for religious artefacts, whilst highly imaginative was in very questionable taste.
No friend of the Second Estate, yet he was appalled by the brutal massacres of the clergy during the great Terror and, supreme irony: for someone who gave his name to the practice of ‘sadism’ he was totally opposed to capital punishment.
It has left me much to ponder upon. Now for some good fresh air!!
January 17, 2019
I'm giving this one 4 stars based on the incredible amount of research that went into this book.
If you're looking for the salacious nitty-gritty on Sade, this is not your book, please don't waste your time. I've been carting this thing around for many many years and so it became my first pick for #theunreadshelfproject.
It is long, cumbersome and at times very hard to get through.
Chock full of detail on French law and social history of the time, it would lend itself better as an academic read than one of general interest.
One thing I found rather annoying is that the author tends to call the same individuals a number of different names, literally switching between them from one sentence to the next. Mind-boggling to say the least, and a time-waster for the times it causes you to backtrack to make sure you're understanding correctly. You'll see this especially in the case of Sade's mother-in-law, who is referred to in at least three different forms.
I'll be following this one up with a marathon of everything good youtube has to offer on the Marquis de Sade.
If you're looking for the salacious nitty-gritty on Sade, this is not your book, please don't waste your time. I've been carting this thing around for many many years and so it became my first pick for #theunreadshelfproject.
It is long, cumbersome and at times very hard to get through.
Chock full of detail on French law and social history of the time, it would lend itself better as an academic read than one of general interest.
One thing I found rather annoying is that the author tends to call the same individuals a number of different names, literally switching between them from one sentence to the next. Mind-boggling to say the least, and a time-waster for the times it causes you to backtrack to make sure you're understanding correctly. You'll see this especially in the case of Sade's mother-in-law, who is referred to in at least three different forms.
I'll be following this one up with a marathon of everything good youtube has to offer on the Marquis de Sade.
October 2, 2012
A wonderfully compiled biography, excellently told and very readable. Lever's work is both compelling and well-researched, and I enjoyed the entirety of the work. I was not a huge fan of Sade's novels, as I thought the extremity detracted from the poetic nature of his criticisms; but after reading this, Lever has provided an excellent base on which to build the Sadean character. He looks at both the man and the monster, and balances both unusually well. There isn't a lot of focus on literary examination vis a vis literary criticism, and that's wonderful. Lever rather focuses on the man behind the works and what could've possibly influence such depravity.
All in all, a great read, simple and excellent written.
All in all, a great read, simple and excellent written.
May 20, 2013
I picked this up for a dollar at a festival. It is incredibly detailed and features information gathered from the personal family archive which was opened to the biographer. It is exhaustive in detail, and thus a bit confusing at times. That said, I would assume it is the best biography on the Marquis. The chapters on the French Revolution were illuminating as well as understanding his significance to theorists. An incurable atheist and libertine with a complicated character, he was in and out of jail for his entire life. His final chapter in the last mental hospital ignited my imagination! It's too much. What a blazingly fantastic life!
Read
November 12, 2012The wind whistles through almost every page of this bracing biography, against a backgroud of the heaviest breathing since Bram Stoker's Dracula. The Marquis de Sade is the spectre at the feast of European letters, the prodigal son invited in from the cold only to leave footprints of human blood on the welcome-mat.
June 12, 2008
Had to use this book in a research paper last semester and in it you see the influences that made up D.A.F. de Sade's books, another must read for D.A.F. de Sade fans
Want to read
December 19, 2009Sade : a biography by Maurice Lever (1993)
May 27, 2013
Podría haberse titulado En defensa de Sade, porque peca un poco de hagiografía. Aún así, es la mejor documentada hasta la fecha, según creo.
November 29, 2018
So let's have a think about what comes to mind when you think of the Marquis de Sade. You know, Donatien Alphonse François. The famous libertine with a fixation on all things anal. The atheist who shagged anything that moved and put anything that didn't up his backside. The corrupter of youth, the writer of obscenities. The beloved of surrealists. The perennial prisoner. This guy:
You'd think it would be something to do with sex that'd be the key driver of the guy's story right?
Well, having read through all 600-odd pages of Maurice Lever's biography, I gotta tell you that the sex shit is nothing. The real focus of ole DAF's life was real estate.
I know, right? Mind blown.
The undoubted root-rat peccadilloes of the guy are examined at length throughout this work, which is a pretty accomplished look at the old perve's life and times. But throughout the pages, the thing that comes back time and again is money and about how to best utilise the proceeds from holdings, how to wring the most currency out of one's abode. And how to offload that shit when debtors come calling.
Seriously, Donatien is worse than I was with my first credit card. He owes money all over the joint, and advantageous marriages and multiple mortgages seem to be his best way of raising extra money to spend on Spanish Fly pastilles (in the hope of encouraging flatulence from prostitutes, so he reckons).
So. If you're looking for tales of louche libertinism then sure, they're in here. But other than those which were the basis of legal proceedings (such as the aforementioned pastilles, served with a side-order of whipping and footman wanking), the book isn't as salacious as you'd imagine. Yeah, the guy wrote transgressive porn: but he was largely neutered by the machinations of the state, of the law, and of his family. He was kept out of society for a lot of the time, so his actual boning behaviour was fairly commonplace, given his station and disinterest in court. He was a prisoner, mostly, in a number of jails and asylums, and despite the boons his connections allowed him, he still couldn't do what he liked, either financially or physically.
The biggest surprise was that with most of the can't-keep-it-in-his-pants stuff, de Sade was merely following in the footsteps of his spendthrift sire. I guess there really isn't anything new under the sun, even when we're talking about a story involving The 120 Days of Sodom.
(I was disappointed to find out that his time at Charenton wasn't as Marat/Sade would have had me believe. GODDAMNIT THEATRE, YOU LIED TO ME.)
Lever's writing (through Arthur Goldhammer's translation) is clear, and the book - though overlong - is wry and keeps interest up all the way through. Yes, even in the transitions of the Revolution, which seem much more convoluted and complex here than in almost any other recounting I've read. The chapters are broken up with pithy subheads, and the prose is, though copious, easy. That's not to say it's not dry, though - there's a lot of chaff to get through.
Much is made by Lever of his access to primary sources that other biographers haven't used. I have no idea whether this is the case, but the author misses no opportunity to correct mistakes in other biographies of de Sade, slipping the academic boot in with Gallic relish. It's deeply satisfying to encounter his take on how people - surrealists, mostly - have misinterpreted de Sade and his role in the Revolution, but I do love me some bitchy academic infighting.
(I'm actually grateful to Goldhammer's editorial instinct: he snipped out lengthier letters which added no further information to non-French readers. I can't imagine how long the unexpurgated text must be: you'd really have to be into the guy to pull that one off.)
The book is cogent, well researched and entertaining to a point, but it also shows its age a little in its Freudian reading of de Sade's literature and habits. It's not an enormous strike against it, but it certainly felt forced and clunky in those moments.
I'd always been interested in de Sade, obviously because I was an insufferable edgelord when I was younger. I've lugged this book around for almost 25 years and only just come around to reading it. Now, I wish I had done so when it came out. For starters, I'd have saved myself a bunch in moving costs - it's heavy - but more importantly I would have realised that de Sade's works are the product of the mind of one imprisoned by his family, his state, and himself. That the big libertine was really without liberty - and that everything flowed from there.
(Even if he couldn't bring himself to stop cranking it like a teenager.)
You'd think it would be something to do with sex that'd be the key driver of the guy's story right?
Well, having read through all 600-odd pages of Maurice Lever's biography, I gotta tell you that the sex shit is nothing. The real focus of ole DAF's life was real estate.
I know, right? Mind blown.
The undoubted root-rat peccadilloes of the guy are examined at length throughout this work, which is a pretty accomplished look at the old perve's life and times. But throughout the pages, the thing that comes back time and again is money and about how to best utilise the proceeds from holdings, how to wring the most currency out of one's abode. And how to offload that shit when debtors come calling.
Seriously, Donatien is worse than I was with my first credit card. He owes money all over the joint, and advantageous marriages and multiple mortgages seem to be his best way of raising extra money to spend on Spanish Fly pastilles (in the hope of encouraging flatulence from prostitutes, so he reckons).
So. If you're looking for tales of louche libertinism then sure, they're in here. But other than those which were the basis of legal proceedings (such as the aforementioned pastilles, served with a side-order of whipping and footman wanking), the book isn't as salacious as you'd imagine. Yeah, the guy wrote transgressive porn: but he was largely neutered by the machinations of the state, of the law, and of his family. He was kept out of society for a lot of the time, so his actual boning behaviour was fairly commonplace, given his station and disinterest in court. He was a prisoner, mostly, in a number of jails and asylums, and despite the boons his connections allowed him, he still couldn't do what he liked, either financially or physically.
The biggest surprise was that with most of the can't-keep-it-in-his-pants stuff, de Sade was merely following in the footsteps of his spendthrift sire. I guess there really isn't anything new under the sun, even when we're talking about a story involving The 120 Days of Sodom.
(I was disappointed to find out that his time at Charenton wasn't as Marat/Sade would have had me believe. GODDAMNIT THEATRE, YOU LIED TO ME.)
Lever's writing (through Arthur Goldhammer's translation) is clear, and the book - though overlong - is wry and keeps interest up all the way through. Yes, even in the transitions of the Revolution, which seem much more convoluted and complex here than in almost any other recounting I've read. The chapters are broken up with pithy subheads, and the prose is, though copious, easy. That's not to say it's not dry, though - there's a lot of chaff to get through.
Much is made by Lever of his access to primary sources that other biographers haven't used. I have no idea whether this is the case, but the author misses no opportunity to correct mistakes in other biographies of de Sade, slipping the academic boot in with Gallic relish. It's deeply satisfying to encounter his take on how people - surrealists, mostly - have misinterpreted de Sade and his role in the Revolution, but I do love me some bitchy academic infighting.
(I'm actually grateful to Goldhammer's editorial instinct: he snipped out lengthier letters which added no further information to non-French readers. I can't imagine how long the unexpurgated text must be: you'd really have to be into the guy to pull that one off.)
The book is cogent, well researched and entertaining to a point, but it also shows its age a little in its Freudian reading of de Sade's literature and habits. It's not an enormous strike against it, but it certainly felt forced and clunky in those moments.
I'd always been interested in de Sade, obviously because I was an insufferable edgelord when I was younger. I've lugged this book around for almost 25 years and only just come around to reading it. Now, I wish I had done so when it came out. For starters, I'd have saved myself a bunch in moving costs - it's heavy - but more importantly I would have realised that de Sade's works are the product of the mind of one imprisoned by his family, his state, and himself. That the big libertine was really without liberty - and that everything flowed from there.
(Even if he couldn't bring himself to stop cranking it like a teenager.)
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews