Sade's Wife: The Woman Behind the Marquis

By Margaret Crosland

Book Overview

A fascinating biography of the Marquis de Sade's wife Ren e-P lagie de Montreuil and a portrait of their surprisingly happy decades-long marriage.

FOR FANS OF WOMEN'S HISTORY: A witty and compassionate look at the surprisingly independent and complex woman behind one of literature's most scandalous figures.

The Marquis de Sade, infamous for his obscene writing and his cruelty to women, nonetheless lived a life dominated by them - his charismatic mother, iron-willed mother-in-law, and his wife. A wife who, despite her husband's peccadilloes, and although their marriage was arranged in order for their families to combine financial and social capital, loved him devotedly for thirty years, through betrayal, imprisonment, and national turmoil.

This biography reveals how Ren e-P lagie de Montreuil, Marquise de Sade, endured the chaos caused by her frenetically dissolute husband with grace, and how she carved out her own independence in an era when women were entitled to little of their own. She bore the Marquis three children, loved him, put up with his wild behavior, edited his manuscripts for him, tried to help him escape prison by means legal and illegal, and acted throughout the decades of their marriage as his only reliable friend.

Their complex relationship, set against the last years of the Ancien R gime in France, the Revolution and its aftermath, are brought to life with humor and compassion by Margaret Crosland, also the translator of Sade's Gothic Tales. She shows how the Sade marriage symbolized the decay of the old aristocracy and conveys the struggle of one individual to establish her personal identity at a time when women in France had virtually no rights of their own.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1805330624
• ISBN13: 9781805330622
• Release Date: January 1
• Publisher: Pushkin Press Classics
• Length: 192 Pages
• Weight: 0.81 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Sade's Wife

This book is very good, although the author had to avoid interesting events from Marquis de Sade's by again and again explaining that this is a biography of his wife. Crosland sticks to her guns on this, and that is commendable, since Sade could so easily have eclipsed her. Overall its a decent book, and necessary reading for anyone interested in de Sade.