Aline and Valcour, Vol. 1: or, the Philosophical Novel Sade Marquis dePaperback

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 Tamo , a utopian paradise headed by a philosopher-king. In Butua, a lustful chief and