Skip to product information
1 of 1

Contra Mundum Press

Aline and Valcour, Vol. 2: or, the Philosophical Novel

Regular price $18.00 USD
Regular price Sale price $18.00 USD
Sale Sold out
Shipping calculated at checkout.
Title: Aline and Valcour, Vol. 2: or, the Philosophical Novel
Author: Sade, Marquis de
ISBN: 9781940625324
Publisher: Contra Mundum Press
Published: 2019
Binding: Quality
Language: English
Condition: New
New from the publisher

Fiction 1209119

Publisher Description:

Set against the impending riptide of the French Revolution and composed while Sade was imprisoned in the Bastille, Aline and Valcour embodies the multiple themes that would become the hallmark of his far more sulfurous works.

This epistolary work combines genres, interweaving the adventure story with the libertine novel and the novel of feelings to create a compelling, unitary tale. Turbulence disrupts virtuous lives when corrupt schemers work incestuous designs upon them that don't stop with abduction and seduction -- as crime imposes tragic obstacles to love and delivers harsh threats to morality and religion.

Embedded within Aline and Valcour are sojourns in unknown lands in Africa and the South Seas: Butua, a cannibalistic dystopia, and Tamoé, a utopian paradise headed by a philosopher-king. In Butua, a lustful chief and callous priesthood rule over a doomed people, with atrocious crimes committed in broad daylight, while in Tamoé happiness and prosperity reign amidst benevolent anarchy.

Although not sexually explicit, Aline and Valcour shared the fate of Sade's other novels -- banned in 1815 and later classified a prohibited work by the French government. Published clandestinely, it did not appear in bookstores until after WWII. Continuously in print in France ever since, today it occupies the first volume of the Pléiade edition of the author's collected works.

This is the very first rendering of the book into English since its publication in 1795.