1st 2020 284pp Princeton University Press. Illustrated. Slightly knock head and tail of spine else NM in NM dustwrapper.
 
How the notorious author of The 120 Days of Sodom inspired the surrealists and other avant-garde artists, writers, and filmmakers. The writings of the Marquis de Sade (1740-1814) present a libertine philosophy of sexual excess and human suffering that refuses to make any concession to law, religion, or public decency. In this groundbreaking cultural history, Alyce Mahon traces how artists of the twentieth century turned to Sade to explore political, sexual, and psychological terror, adapting his imagery of the excessively sexual and terrorized body as a means of liberation from systems of power.