Satan's saint;: A novel about the Marquis de Sade,

by Guy Endore

Satan's Saint by Guy Endore, Crown Publishers, 1965, First Edition. This is a Collectible, Hardcover book and dust jacket. The book is Lavender cloth over boards with White lettering on the spine. The dust jacket has been placed in an archival, clear, Mylar jacket for further protection and preservation. An Uncommon title! Not my idea of a "Saint," but then neither was Sartre's view of "Saint Genet." Perhaps too much "vin ordinaire" while writing? Or is there a less bibulous and in any way more positive view of the sadistic Marquis? A ripping novel of the granddaddy of S & M. It can't be beat. 312 pages with notes. Check out this author's "Werewolf Of Paris" as well. Erotica at its best! The Werewolf of Paris to King of Paris, have been a vast preparatory training for the revelation of the Divine Marquis. Satan's Saint is a literary event. It not only shows Sade in a convulsive storm of sex and uninhibited fury, with his conventional signature of women and it also establishes him as a man much in advance of his time. (From the Jacket).

Genres: Biography

312 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1950

About the author

Samuel Guy Endore (4 July 1900 - 12 February 1970), born Samuel Goldstein and also known as Harry Relis, was a novelist and screenwriter. During his career he produced a wide array of novels, screenplays, and pamphlets, both published and unpublished. A cult favorite of fans of horror, he is best known for his novel The Werewolf of Paris which occupies a significant position in werewolf literature, much in the same way that Dracula does for fans of vampires.
He was nominated for a screenwriting Oscar for The Story of G.I. Joe (1945), and his novel Methinks the Lady . . . (1946) was the basis for Ben Hecht's screenplay for Whirlpool (1949).

Reviews

[Bill Wallace · Rating 3 out of 5]

As in KING OF PARIS, Endore uses an odd technique in this novel/biography of the Marquis de Sade. Where the historical record hints or is unclear, Endore creates "historical documents" to quote so that undocumented, fictionalized voices tell part of the story. Entertaining as it sometimes is, this tactic also -- at least for this reader -- casts a cloud over the facts and arguably takes liberties with the material well beyond what a biography should. One problem here is that the facts of Sade's life are often sketchy and the interpolations more extensive than in Endor's Dumas volume.

Aside from that, the book is amusing, easy to read if a bit repetitive. Sade lived a hedonistic life when he wasn't behind bars and trying to mine the facts out of his writings is a difficult task. His detractors invented horrors but even those inventions fall short of the atrocities outlined in his books. Endore is sympathetic to Sade's emphasis on love (as opposed to war, as personified here by Napoleon) and critical of the common European and American attitude toward anything sexual. The concluding chapters largely depart from Sade and contain a damning appraisal of the love humankind has for death, the suppression of sex, and the use of moralizing to control human, especially female, behavior. I can't argue with his conclusions.