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 is the very first rendering of the book into English since its publication in 1795..
Continuously in print in France ever since, today it occupies the first volume of the Pl iade edition of the author\'s collected works.
Published clandestinely, it did not appear in bookstores until after WWII.
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.
In Butua, a lustful chief and callous priesthood rule over a doomed people, with atrocious crimes committed in broad daylight, while in Tamo happiness and prosperity reign amidst benevolent anarchy.
Embedded within Aline and Valcour are sojourns in unknown lands in Africa and the South Seas: Butua, a cannibalistic dystopia, and Tamo , a utopian paradise headed by a philosopher-king.
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.
This epistolary work combines genres, interweaving the adventure story with the libertine Novel and the Novel of feelings to create a compelling, unitary tale.
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
