The Curse of the Marquis de Sade: A Notorious Scoundrel, a Mythical Manuscript, and the Biggest Scandal in Literary History

by Joel Warner

The captivating, deeply reported true story of how one of the most notorious novels ever written—Marquis de Sade’s 120 Days of Sodom—landed at the heart of one of the biggest scams in modern literary history.

Described as both “one of the most important novels ever written” and “the gospel of evil,” 120 Days of Sodom was written by the Marquis de Sade, a notorious eighteenth-century aristocrat who waged a campaign of mayhem and debauchery across France, evaded execution, and inspired the word “sadism,” which came to mean receiving pleasure from pain. Despite all his crimes, Sade considered this work to be his greatest transgression.

The original manuscript of 120 Days of Sodom, a tiny scroll penned in the bowels of the Bastille in Paris, would embark on a centuries-spanning odyssey across Europe, passing from nineteenth-century banned book collectors to pioneering sex researchers to avant-garde artists before being hidden away from Nazi book burnings. In 2014, the world heralded its return to France when the scroll was purchased for millions by Gérard Lhéritier, the self-made son of a plumber who had used his savvy business skills to upend France’s renowned rare-book market. But the sale opened the door to vendettas by the government, feuds among antiquarian booksellers, manuscript sales derailed by sabotage, a record-breaking lottery jackpot, and allegations of a decade-long billion-euro con, the specifics of which, if true, would make the scroll part of France’s largest-ever Ponzi scheme.

Told with gripping reporting and flush with deceit and scandal, The Curse of the Marquis de Sade weaves together the sweeping odyssey of 120 Days of Sodom and the spectacular rise and fall of Lhéritier, once the “king of manuscripts” and now known to many as the Bernie Madoff of France. At its center is an urgent question for all those who cherish the written word: As the age of handwriting comes to an end, what do we owe the original texts left behind?

Genres: History, Nonfiction, True Crime, Books About Books, Biography, Audiobook, France

304 pages, Hardcover

First published February 21, 2023

About the author

Joel Warner is a writer and editor whose work has appeared in Esquire, Wired, Newsweek, Men’s Journal, Bloomberg Businessweek, Popular Science, and Slate, among others. He currently serves as managing editor of the investigative news outlet The Lever and previously worked as a staff writer at International Business Times and Westword.

He lives with his family in Denver, Colorado.

Reviews

[Krista · Rating 4 out of 5]

The cell’s occupant was one of the most notorious criminals in eighteenth-century France. He had spent the bulk of his forty-five years reveling in depravity: engaging in blasphemous acts with a prostitute, torturing a beggar, poisoning whores, hiding in Italy in the romantic company of his sister-in-law, locking away girls and boys in his château for his own sexual designs, and narrowly surviving a bullet fired at his chest. For years, he had evaded the law — breaking out of an Alpine prison, dodging a military raid on his home, absconding from the clutches of a police squadron, and eluding his own public execution. His name was Donatien Alphonse François de Sade, but most people knew him as the Marquis de Sade.

I went into The Curse of the Marquis de Sade knowing very little about its eponymous subject — I read Justine when I was twenty or so (and remember nothing of it), and I saw my daughter perform in a university production of Marat/Sade (so I knew something of his time in the Charenton Asylum) — and knew nothing at all about the novel, The 120 Days of Sodom, described here — about four libertines who enslave a group of mostly children and sexually torture them for a month — so I found the twin stories that Joel Warner relates about the life of Sade and the history of this manuscript to be entirely shocking, fascinating, and stranger than fiction. Deeply researched and engagingly related, Warner uses the life of the Marquis de Sade — and the bibliophiles who would eventually stop at nothing to acquire his handwritten manuscript — to explore questions about art and freedom and obsession, and I loved the whole thing. (Note: I read an ARC through NetGalley and passages quoted may not be in their final forms.)

Was Sade a revolutionary, working to expose the rotten core of the aristocracy to which he had been born? Was he a radical philosopher, aiming to lay bare humanity’s most cruel and twisted desires? Or was he simply an unrepentant criminal, chronicling his own atrocities, committed or simply dreamed of? There is also the puzzle of the manuscript itself. Sade worked on the text from seven to ten o’clock each evening, since its content was far too scandalous for him to be caught composing it during the day. When he reached the end of a sheet of paper, he pasted another below it, creating an ever-lengthening roll. After twenty-two nights, he flipped the document over and continued to write. The result, after thirty-seven days of work, was a scroll formed from thirty-three sheets of paper fastened end to end, measuring just over four inches wide and stretching nearly forty feet. Both sides were covered with words — 157,000 in total — the text so tiny it was nearly illegible without a magnifying glass.

It definitely takes an entire book to relate all the twists in the life of the Marquis de Sade — he wrote The 120 Days of Sodom in the Bastille, but was transferred to another prison just before it was stormed; he narrowly escaped an appointment with the guillotine during the Reign of Terror; and not only did he spend his later years homeless or in filthy prison cells and mental wards, but after death, his skull was “borrowed” (and lost) by a German phrenologist — but what I learned for certain: it wasn’t only Sade’s erotic writings that ran him afoul of the morality police; he actually did kidnap, poison, and torture youths and sex workers, so he’s not exactly the poster child for free expression; his life wasn’t driven by kink, but psychopathy. And it made for compelling reading.

And as for The 120 Days of Sodom: Its contents are of debatable literary and artistic value — early sex researchers valued it as a catalogue of taboo fantasies and the Surrealists resurrected it as a stream of unfiltered subconsciousness — but the uniquely-made manuscript itself was always highly prized, and Warner traces its fascinating path through the hands of thieves and heirs and millionaire erotica collectors; from the mason who first found it hidden in Sade’s cell at the Bastille, to the rare book collector who repatriated it to France, only to watch his empire crumble mere months later. And it is this last bit that the entire book is working toward: When Gérard Lhéritier came up with the novel business plan to allow investors to own fractional shares in rare manuscripts — with the option to sell them back to his company, Aristophil, five years later at their then current value — was he inventing a unique investment instrument, or running a Ponzi scheme? Both Lhéritier and Sade seem to share a callous disregard for the wellbeing of others, but what constitutes overreach in the government’s efforts to control someone like that? Is it a coincidence that the French government didn’t take much notice of Lhéritier’s business dealings until he was able to acquire a manuscript that they then declared a piece of national patrimony, or is Lhéritier just the latest victim of the curse of the Marquis de Sade?

Lhéritier insisted that he wasn’t France’s Bernie Madoff. Madoff’s Wall Street firm hadn’t been selling anything tangible; Aristophil, meanwhile, had traded in real manuscripts with real value. The truth, declared Lhéritier, would emerge when he finally had his day in court. When asked how many years in prison he thought he’d receive, he flashed his roguish smile and made a circle with his fingers: zero.

From the No. 1 Compagnie des Aérostatiers (hot air balloonists who ferried the mail out of France during the Prussian siege of 1780) to Sade’s elderly great-great-great-granddaughter trying to join the student protests of 1968 outside Théâtre de l’Odéon (which had been built on the site of the Marquis de Sade’s birthplace, likely without her knowing that fact) to a bizarrely coincidental EuroMillions lottery win and Pierre Cardin's restoration of the crumbling Sade castle, there are so many interesting facts and coincidences in The Curse of the Marquis de Sade, that as straight history, this is a satisfying read. But by counterplaying the two stories of the life of Sade with the life of his most notorious manuscript — and culminating with perhaps the biggest investment con in France’s history — Warner elevates the material to ask compelling and relevant questions about what it means to be a decent person; what do we owe to ourselves and others in the face of our own desires? Excellent read.

[Sarah W. · Rating 3 out of 5]

How did the notorious Marquis de Sade go from a dangerous criminal to his works being sought by collectors and declared a part of French heritage? That's a question partially answered in this book (I don't know if it can be fully answered), which is centered around the history of Sade's famous manuscript of 120 Days of Sodom. Sade wrote the manuscript while imprisoned in the Bastille before the French Revolution and the manuscript had a tangled history before becoming a part of an investing scandal in contemporary France. I appreciated how the author intertwined the history of Sade, the manuscript, and the recent scandal, which made for engaging reading.

[Scott Rhee · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are two narrative threads going on in Joel Warner’s interesting but ultimately unsatisfying book “The Curse of the Marquis De Sade”: one is about a notorious manuscript written by a sexual criminal during the 18th century and the other story is about one of the allegedly largest and most lucrative con-jobs ever perpetrated (so far) in the 21st century. On their own, they are quite fascinating stories.

What Warner attempts to do is somehow combine the two narrative threads into one cohesive whole. For the most part, he succeeds, except that in alternating the focus between both stories, he starts to lose focus on both stories. In the end, it just leaves me wanting more information.

His historical “biography” of the infamous “120 Days of Sodom”, written by an imprisoned Marquis de Sade (whose sexual predilections and perversions were so well-known that the word “sadism” stems from his name), is excellent, and this alone is probably worth the read.

The novel was written in a fever dream (probably syphillis-related) on a long scroll that was transported in a special container made especially for Sade. The book, translated from the French, was later published and created quite a stir. By all accounts, it is Sade describing the depth and length of human sexual depravity. Think 18th century “The Human Centipede”.

Warner tracks the colorful history of the various owners throughout history, starting with some of Sade’s relatives. At one point, it was owned by a doctor who studied sex and was, in fact, one of the founders of the very real science of sexology. It finally found its way into the hands of Gerard Lheritier.

A savvy businessman (or brilliant con-artist, according to some) Lheritier had a business that bought and sold old manuscripts. Believing that paper was more valuable than property, Lheritier convinced his clients (marks) out of a sense of national heritage (these were, in fact, authenticated historical manuscripts) and elitism (who, after all, wouldn’t love to brag at a dinner party that they owned the original manuscript of Dickens’ “David Copperfield”?)

Then, in 2015, French police raided his corporate offices and charged Lheritier with bilking hundreds of his clients out of millions of dollars through a highly elaborate Ponzi scheme. He was quickly dubbed “The French Bernie Madoff”. He is still appealing it today.

Of the two stories, the history of Sade’s manuscript is a far more interesting one. Maybe I’m just not that business-oriented but I could honestly care less about some asshole who scammed millions from a bunch of other gullible rich assholes.

What Warner has here potentially, in my opinion, is the start of two great books. Unfortunately, what he has in actuality is one mediocre book.

[Justin (Bubbas_Bookshelves) · Rating 4 out of 5]

This has to be one of the weirdest but most interesting historical nonfiction books I’ve read. Before reading this I had a verrrrry small bit of knowledge about the Marquis de Sade. I know the words “sadist/sadism” came from his name but never really knew why or anything about him. In this book, Warner takes a deep dive through history to not only showcase who de Sade was and how he earned his claim to fame as a prisoner of sex crimes, blasphemy and pornography, but also about his The 120 Days of Sodom: a novel that scandalized a nation with its eroticism and perversion in 18th century France. What was most fascinating was how 120 Days of Sodom was written on a scroll and then that scroll was bought, sold, stolen, hidden from the nazis, and later sold at an auction house as one of the highest literary sales in history. If you’re looking for a book with historical curiosities, 1700s risqué content, and a centuries spanning mystery: this book is for you!

[Amanda · Rating 1 out of 5]

I received a copy of this book in a Goodreads giveaway.

I am not sure how this author managed to write the world's most boring textbook about the biggest scandal in literary history, but he certainly managed it. I got through two chapters of feeling like I was sitting through the worst English literature course of all time before I gave up. While I generally have an appreciation for books of a historical nature, there was very little to appreciate about this one. DNF.

[Trevor Abbott · Rating 3 out of 5]

Meh

[Ashley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thanks to NetGalley and Crown Publishing for the ARC. It hasn't affected the contents of my review.

The Marquis de Sade was an absolute maniac. A lot of people have tried to justify him as a free thinker, an artist, a revolutionary, someone on the cutting edge of everything. I think he just did whatever he wanted because he couldn't control himself and damn the consequences. I don't think he was that deep. Similarly, people try to say that 120 Days of Sodom is a work of literature, pushing boundaries, and cataloguing the variety of human sexuality. I've read the book. I think Sade just wanted to document his sexual fantasies and then retreat into the corner of his cell in the Bastille with his custom dildoes (fun fact I learned in this book) and have himself a good time. He also perpetrated actual harm on actual people! No murder, as far as anyone is aware, but definitely kidnapping, assault, sexual assault, poisoning, and who knows what else. His contemporaries would have also charged him with such crimes as sodomy, blasphemy, and other "sexual crimes." The French government hanged and burned him in effigy because they couldn't catch him. And I find him incredibly interesting to read about.

And he continued to inspire mania in others long after his death. People were fascinated by his life throughout history and made important political and scientific decisions because of him and his work. And the manuscript of 120 Days of Sodom, famously lost in the storming of the Bastille, has just as intense a legacy as the person who wrote it. Joel Warner traces the movements of the scrolled manuscript throughout history, and it has certainly had an interesting journey.

The book is equal parts a biography of Sade and the tracing of this manuscript. I found both parts fascinating. Sade's life was a trainwreck of pleasure-seeking gone awry. And the manuscript changed hands many times, intersecting with NAZIs, Sade's direct descendants, investment schemes, and more. My favorite part of the book is that Warner takes the time to detail the people involved in a very fun way, and lets himself go off on historical tangents that were so informative. For instance, I had NO idea that there was such a vibrant queer community developing in post-WWI Berlin, and that the government was on the verge of decriminalizing homosexuality before it collapsed and the NAZIs took over.

Anyway, this was one of the most entertaining non-fiction books I've ever read, so I'm definitely buying myself a copy and will be re-reading in the future. Highly recommend.

[Melissa Wood · Rating 4 out of 5]

Always fascinated by those on the fringes and the world of books. Combine them and you have gold.

[Pooja Peravali · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Marquis de Sade is a divisive figure in literature, with as many people arguing for him being a visionary as there are for him being a mere maniac. But less known is the complicated journey of the manuscript of his best-known work The 120 Days of Sodom and how it came to be involved in a massive Ponzi scheme that's still being untangled to this very day.

I have a passing acquaintance with the Marquis de Sade as a curious historical figure and not much else. I read pretty broadly, but not broadly enough to include his canon of works. Still, it's always made me curious why this writing, which while satirical is also overtly, unpleasantly pornographic and seems to fit in a narrow niche, became part of the zeitgeist at various points throughout history.

In this book Warner tackles three interwoven stories - the life of Sade, the journey of the scroll, and the initial success and eventual crash of Aristophil. They are all fascinating stories, easy to follow despite the many settings and characters over which they range. I loved how Warner dug into the stories of those who possessed the scroll at various times, and how it left its mark on them all.

However, I did feel like there was a bit of a disconnect between the Sade and the scroll sections from the Aristophil section. The scroll crosses the path of the company only briefly, so while some sections, like those dealing broadly with the buying and selling of manuscripts, fit together with the rest of the book, others seemed to belong to another book entirely. I also wished the author came down more definitively on the central question of Sade. Is he a visionary or a madman or both? The question is thorny enough to always demand another answer.

[Karyl · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a college student, I worked in my university’s library, in the Manuscripts and Rare Books department. While I never handled anything nearly as fascinating or horrific as 12o Days of Sodom, I did have to read the letters of a family that lived in Williamsburg, Virginia, during the Civil War. Some letters were very hard to read, having been cross-hatched (ie, written across the page one way, then turned 90° and written over that way), so I give all the props to the folks who managed to decipher the Marquis de Sade’s absolutely infinitesimal writing on the scroll he made while in prison at the Bastille.

If you’re reading this book to be titillated by the contents of the Marquis de Sade’s 120 Days of Sodom or his other writing, you’re going to be rather disappointed. Warner does allude to some of what’s in the scroll and in other writing by Sade, and he mentions some of the depravity that Sade enjoying engaging in, but it’s only done so that the reader understands how awful Sade’s writing and imagination could be. Instead the focus is on who Sade was, the man who produced these depraved writings, as well as what was happening during the French Revolution, which happened during Sade’s life.

Warner also describes the owners of the scroll, and how certain men would be interested in owning such a thing. He points out that the titillation of owning such a depraved object wasn’t always the motivation; instead, the sheer rarity of erotica throughout history is what caused these manuscripts and paintings and drawings and novels to be so valuable and desirable. However, while reading about these men with large collections of erotica, I couldn’t help but be reminded of the movie The Handmaiden, about a man who owns a large collection of erotica and who requires his ward to read some of the material aloud to men who have paid for the privilege.

Warner’s juxtaposition of Sade’s life and the chaos of the French Revolution with the modern acquisition of the scroll by the company Aristophil for its investors, alternating chapters, is quite masterfully done. Had he instead gone chronologically, the book would have been much weaker, and the reader would have quickly lost interest. Instead, I was hard-pressed to put this book down, so fascinated was I by not only learning more about French history, but also that manuscripts were being used as part of an enormous Ponzi scheme.

I found this to be quite a intriguing and gripping book, which surprised me. Based on the reviews, I had expected it to go the other way. But I’m quite glad I randomly grabbed this off my library’s “new” shelf.

[Samantha · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting look at the world of rare manuscripts and the life of the notorious Marquis de Sade.

This is a combination of light biography of Sade and a recent history of manuscript sales and collecting. Most of the stuff about Sade’s work doesn’t interest me specifically, as I’m not a big believer in the”genius of insanity” and already knew the academic biographical basics coming in. What is interesting, though, is the attitudes and laws that influenced this manuscript’s path, as well as those of others of a somewhat similar nature.

There’s some interesting stuff here about the appeal of collecting Erotica and rare Pornography, which is often more about the rarity of the manuscript than about its content. How popular opinion about these things evolves over time is also fascinating. To me, these attitudes toward collecting are the most interesting part of this book.

The relatively recent fate of Sade’s manuscript and its connection to a sorts kinda Ponzi scheme involving a French dealer and auction house was less interesting to read about than I would have anticipated, but still somewhat compelling in parts. To call it the “biggest scandal in literary history” is patently absurd, but subtitles gonna subtitle, I suppose.

I disagree with reviewers who said this was dry and boring, and I think the author did a lovely job of making this a compelling read in the narrative sense without compromising the quality of information. The supposed “scandal” doesn’t quite pass muster from an entertainment value standpoint or an academic one, but the book as a whole is an excellent read.

*I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.*

[Nathan Schmidt · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received an an advance uncorrected proof of this book through Goodreads First Reads and am grateful for the opportunity to review it.

I love history books that explore many angles - historical, social, biographical, etc. - and The Curse of the Marquis de Sade certainly satisfies that desire. While some of the book focuses on the sexual debauchery of de Sade and his infamous novel 120 Days of Sodom (but never in overly graphic detail), the larger story is on the journey of both de Sade and his works over the course of time.

Through this exploration, the book touches many fascinating topics, from the development of sexual theories to government suppression of erotica (and the underworld markets that nevertheless thrived) to the history of book collectors to the modern era of digitization. And most of all, the shifting and contrasting views of de Sade and his novels over the centuries. There is so much fascinating material to unpack in this history.

My only issue to some degree with the book is its rather fragmented approach to storytelling. Typically, each chapter focuses on either a key stage in de Sade's life or the story of one of the later owners of 120 Days. This alone wouldn't be an issue if they were arranged chronologically, but we jump back in forth: one chapter might take place in the 2007, and the next in 1772, and the one after in the 1930s. I admit that this approach does build a sense of mystery to a degree, but it also makes it harder to keep track of things, though I do appreciate the author including a cast list at the beginning.

I'm also wondering what the empty index section at the end of the book will contain in the final version.

Still, this is a very intriguing history that covers a wide range of historical and social topics, particularly how we view and treat pieces of writing.

[Anne Fox · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is essentially an interesting history of a single manuscript written by the Marquis De Sade: 120 Days of Sodom. Delving into both the background of its notorious author and the happenings of the manuscript's journey to its present, the tale is punctuated by Sade's personal scandals and imprisonments as well as how historical events from the 1700's to the present impacted the document. Its unique form, written front and back on a scroll formed of 40 pages fixed together end to end and handwritten by quill pen in script so small it must be viewed with a magnifying glass, only adds to the mystique that surrounds the manuscript.

I found the lack of chronological linearity a bit confusing at times, and think the book could have benefitted from first outlining the movements of the scroll and then filling in the story with background material relating to Sade himself and following with that of the other possessors of the work, placing all in the context of the historical events occurring as the scroll moved from hand to hand to its final resting place. Still, if you can keep the historical events straight, this is an informative book.

[Ric · Rating 3 out of 5]

There were essentially two threads in this book; the life and writings of the Marquis de Sade and his constantly moving manuscript that wound up being part of an elaborate Ponzi scheme. I don’t particularly like the Marquis de Sade as a person, he’s definitely a series sexual predator and assaulter, and very possibly a murder. But the story seemed so far fetched that it would be amazing, and it was.

Reading about Sade was uncomfortable at times, though the story of his life from the aristocracy to the Bastille and the revolution was interesting. The part with the Ponzi scheme and previous movements to get to that point was more fun to read about in my opinion, and it was as crazy of a story as I thought it would be. But having the two timelines alternate each chapter didn’t quite work for me, because it made me have to reset my thoughts and reacquaint myself with the cast for that time period. I think it would’ve been slightly better with a linear progression.

[Roth Schilling · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you like french history or literary history, you will find this book enjoyable and informative. If you are like me and know little about both subjects but enjoy a fun, twisty, and slightly raunchy ride through some history that you have heard about but didn't really know, then this is for you too. I found the story to be as engaging and the writing to be as relatable as any recent fiction book I have read. The subject could have become academic and boring but it doesn't. Jumping back and forth through time the reader is pulled into a dramatic tale that spans more than two centuries and neatly ties the past to the present. I learned a lot and had a good time doing it.

[Janis · Rating 3 out of 5]

"The Curse of the Marquis de Sade" is part biography of the infamous Marquis, part exploration of how his notorious magnum opus changed hands over the years and part investigation into one of the largest modern investment/art scams.

I was most gripped by the story of the Marquis and especially later in the book I was always glad when the narrative switched to his biography. This is mainly because he lived during such a tumultuous and interesting time period. It was a wild ride, reading about his interactions with the French king, his libertine offenses, justified imprisonments, narrowly avoiding the storming of the Bastille and somehow managing to survive the French Revolution successfully as a nobleman, only to be persecuted under Robespierre and Napoleon. Despite being deservedly condemned by every authority during this time of changing rulers, being imprisoned numerous times, sentenced to death and almost executed on multiple occasions, this disgraceful pervert just wouldn't stop living and being awful. His early misdeeds under the monarchy, in particular, are a testament to the disgusting behavior of the French nobility at the time and it is frustrating how this vile piece of excrement got away with the most atrocious behavior repeatedly.

While significantly more boring, the story of the scroll of "120 Days of Sodom" illustrates well how this degeneracy isn't confined to a specific social class or time in history but continues as a constant aspect of humanity's depravity. This roll of glorified toilet paper should have been burned with the Bastille and the world would be better off for it. Sadly it seems just as resilient as its author. All the attempts to declare it fine art, an important historical artifact or a meticulously crafted social commentary just ignore its disgusting content and how the author genuinely acted it out to the great misfortune of everyone in his service.

The pseudo-sophisticated derelicts who elevate the deepest downfalls of humanity as our greatest achievements are allotted far too much space in this book, which is my greatest critique.

Although the story arc about the investment scam was a totally different narrative, it was a welcome alternative to all the disgusting snobs obsessing over the scroll. However, I suspect most of the modern art market to be either a scam or a tax evasion scheme.

In conclusion, I can't generally recommend this book. If one is actually willing, brave and probably foolish enough to want to learn more about the man who inspired the term sadism, this book is an adequate starting point, allowing you to avoid touching this degenerate’s own works.

[Melody · Rating 2 out of 5]

Unfortunately, while there were a great many interesting elements at play, and there was an attempt to dynamically explore those elements by switching back and forth between the history of Sade and the story of the manuscript, this ultimately fell flat for me. The switching between timelines often confused action-particularly in relation to the movement of the manuscript (though I was also listening on audio). It felt like this story lacked narrative focus in what it truly wanted to explore. And the explorations as they were could feel a little surface level at times. This has a notorious figure, the French Revolution, a mysterious manuscript, and a literary Ponzi scheme, and yet I didn’t really feel the propulsion of any of it.

Also, potentially minor as it was only one occurrence but mores was pronounced wrong in the audio and that threw me.

[Julie Holland · Rating 2 out of 5]

Honestly didn't know much about the Marquis de Sade or the man that wrote it before this and now I know a lot and kinda wish I didn't. What an awful man with awful hobbies, if what he enjoyed doing could even be called hobbies.

Also, I got very bored through this several times and if it wasn't for the fact that I could listen to this at work while I work, I probably wouldn't have finished it. I think it's written well, but the subject matter was just disturbing and dull at the same time. Weird mix. Although, I did like learning a bit of history about an old, yet absolutely awful, dramatic scroll manuscript. In the end it was all just underwhelming and this man, along with several others who participated and encouraged his "hobbies" need psychological help.

[Anthony Hagen · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a (reluctant) fan of Sade, I got this book on a whim and am so happy I did. Joel Warner uses Sade’s lost scroll as an excuse to go off in so many weird eclectic directions: a history of the French Revolution, the sociology of sexuality, literary criticism, investigations of the contemporary rare-book trade, etc. His storytelling is tight and his prose is crisp and clear.

[Igor · Rating 4 out of 5]

Two 'books' in one. First, a biography of the Marquis: rate 4. Second, about the collection and commerce of old manuscripts and books: rate 3.

The Marquis de Sade was a very peculiar subject. Interesting listening.

[Marissa Robbins · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ick.

[Noah Patyna · Rating 3 out of 5]

Eh

[Andrew Lyon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very interesting to read about some of the historical aspects surrounding the scrolls history, however there was never a point where I felt very engaged.

[Aidan · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 I didn’t realize how sex centered this would be as I knew nothing about the marquis before this book and didn’t read the description that well. However it was good and the second half was exactly what I wanted detailing the movements of the scroll with parts of the life of sade intertwined.

[Alex · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my new favorite non-fiction stories. How fascinating!!! I loved reading every minute of this.

[Lissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

A must-read for all bibliophiles- the documented travels of a contentious scroll through time, politics, greed, opposition, and war- fascinating!

[Alyssa · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was really fascinating. I had no idea about the Aristophil scandal which is crazy because the auctions happened around 2020. I enjoyed learning about it.

[Lynn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Today's nonfiction post is on The Curse of the Marquis de Sade: A Notorious Scoundrel, a Mythical Manuscript, and the Biggest Scandal in Literary History by Joel Warner. It is 304 pages long and is published by Crown. The cover is a picture of the scroll that 120 Days in Sodom was written on. There is foul language, sex, and violence in this book. The intended reader is someone who is interested in literary history. There Be Spoilers Ahead.
From the dust jacket- The captivating, deeply reported true story of how one of the most notorious novels ever written—Marquis de Sade’s 120 Days of Sodom—landed at the heart of one of the biggest scams in modern literary history.
Described as both “one of the most important novels ever written” and “the gospel of evil,” 120 Days of Sodom was written by the Marquis de Sade, a notorious eighteenth-century aristocrat who waged a campaign of mayhem and debauchery across France, evaded execution, and inspired the word “sadism,” which came to mean receiving pleasure from pain. Despite all his crimes, Sade considered this work to be his greatest transgression.
The original manuscript of 120 Days of Sodom, a tiny scroll penned in the bowels of the Bastille in Paris, would embark on a centuries-spanning odyssey across Europe, passing from nineteenth-century banned book collectors to pioneering sex researchers to avant-garde artists before being hidden away from Nazi book burnings. In 2014, the world heralded its return to France when the scroll was purchased for millions by Gérard Lhéritier, the self-made son of a plumber who had used his savvy business skills to upend France’s renowned rare-book market. But the sale opened the door to vendettas by the government, feuds among antiquarian booksellers, manuscript sales derailed by sabotage, a record-breaking lottery jackpot, and allegations of a decade-long billion-euro con, the specifics of which, if true, would make the scroll part of France’s largest-ever Ponzi scheme.
Told with gripping reporting and flush with deceit and scandal, The Curse of the Marquis de Sade weaves together the sweeping odyssey of 120 Days of Sodom and the spectacular rise and fall of Lhéritier, once the “king of manuscripts” and now known to many as the Bernie Madoff of France. At its center is an urgent question for all those who cherish the written word: As the age of handwriting comes to an end, what do we owe the original texts left behind?

Review- This book is told in three parts. One from Marquis De Sade and his life, two from the live of the scroll of 120 Days of Sodom, and three a literary scandal around the scroll. Beginning at the creation of 120 Days of Sodom to the end of the scandal, the reader follows the scroll into literary history. I really enjoyed this book, I liked learning about the man behind the legend, I liked learning about the history of 120 Days in Sodom, and I liked learning about the sale of historical documents and books. I would recommend this book.

I give this book a Five out of Five stars. I get nothing for my review and I borrowed this book from my local library.

[Walt · Rating 2 out of 5]

Curse? Mythical Manuscript? Biggest scandal in literary history?

The title f the book is an example of literary hyperbole. It is difficult to follow any of it because there is so much leap-frogging through time from chapter to the next. It is almost impossible for readers to understand the timeline of events, especially when Warner gets around to the literary scandal. He may offer a good history of the notorious scoundrel; but I suspect any - ANY - other book on de Sade would be just as informative without the maddening confusion presented here.

De Sade represents everything wrong with the ancient regime that the French Revolution toppled. His elite status, his care-free attitudes, his free-spending, his get-out-of-jail-free cards, his privileges, etc. He seemingly did nothing for anyone else, and existed solely for his own (depraved) pleasure. His writings were increasingly controversial and perverted. He got in trouble with authorities multiple times when it appeared that he tried to realize some of his writings. It is kind of funny that he was sentenced to death and burned in effigy (but allowed to flee to Italy) after he poisoned some prostitutes with anise and Spanish fly to smell their farts. Farts to die for! But he was by all accounts a loathsome human being.

Locked up in the Bastille for something - thanks to Warner for making that confusing - he wrote his "masterpiece" - 120 Days in Sodom. Written in tiny print on a 37-page scroll, the book describes how four privileged men take a group of pre-teens hostage and subject them to a degrading, humiliating, sexually depraved, and torturous getaway in an isolated villa. Each day the behavior gets worse until the blood-soaked finale. De Sade missed the storming of the Bastille by days, if not hours. His scroll was left in his rooms. Both de Sade and the scroll would go on separate paths. De Sade would show that his numerous brushes with death did nothing to slow him down. He even earned the enmity of Napoleon for his writings. The only thing every successive French government agreed upon in roughly the quarter century 1785-1815 was that De Sade should not live and his literary works burned.

The scroll passed through a variety of owners. Usually, these were obscenely wealthy men who collected literary erotica. At one point it was questionably stolen from its French owner and sold to a wealthy Swiss native. The legal battle ended with the Swiss courts ruling in favor of their citizen because the plaintiff could not show that the Swissman had not purchased the item in good faith. By the 2010s it appeared that the scroll would return to France. The French government declared it to be a national treasure and that it had been stolen and smuggled out of the country. Those designations were intended to discourage anyone else from purchasing it. But at the last moment, someone else did.

Gerard Lheritier was a shady dealer in stamps and manuscripts when he hit upon the idea of turning his business into a joint equity business where he sold shares of valuable manuscripts to thousands of shareholders. It is possible that Warner did not explain clearly; but it is hard to distinguish between Lheritier's Aristophil Company and any sort of private equity firm. It does sound fantastically shady that buyers would have ownership to part of de Sades 120 Days in Sodom. But buy they did. Thousands of people invested 1990-2012. The Aristophil business model appears to have been to purchase a rare manuscript for $100,000 and then offered it for sale for $2 million to its investors. They may have guaranteed a 40% return on investment if they sold their shares back in 5 years. This already sounds fantastical because even Bernie Madoff managed an average of only 16% returns each year. If he mentions it, I missed Warner showing any evidence that Aristophil returned 40% profits on everything 1990-2012.

Lheritier claims the French government unfairly targeted his business. Around 2010-2012 there was a quiet warning issued by government authorities to caution investors working with niche investments - manuscripts, wines, etc. I would be another 2 years before French authorities seized everything from a company that appeared to be doing just fine. The French government was naturally concerned about the investors, so they dumped all of Aristophil's inventory at once on the market - after claiming the most valuable as national treasures, not to be bought or sold - and was surprised that the investors lost 90% of 100% of their investments. Aristophil over-valued its holdings, but that is the business world.

It is hard to pass judgment on Aristophil. It was a very shady business that definitely shook up the manuscript market and antagonized the French government. But unlike most Ponzi schemes it did not implode with authorities picking up the pieces. Lheritier is still awaiting trial nearly a decade after France seized his company claiming it was a Ponzi scheme. From reading the book, it is difficult to tell the relation in time between Aristophil purchasing the scroll and France seizing Aristophil. A lot of it does not add up.

Overall, it is a very difficult book to process. The life and times of de Sade were interesting if only because he was such a scummy person. The Aristophil scandal is discussed with perspectives by both sides. As smarmy as Lheritier is, I am increasingly sympathetic to his claims that France wronged him. Had Warner opted to tell his story in straight chronological fashion, it would have gone much more smoothly. The transition of de Sade from scoundrel to national treasure is an astounding one, and probably means that few people championing his works have ever read 120 Days in Sodom or Justine. Also, what curse?

[Kelsey Weekman · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a really fascinating story that I think really dragged on. More for scholars than the common reader. 4/10, would just read the wikipedia page or watch a documentary next time.