Marquis de Sade​

Ce n’est point ma façon de penser qui a fait mon malheur, c’est celle des autres.

Born in Paris, the son of an officer from one of the oldest aristocratic families in the provinces, he spent part of his childhood in Provence. After studying at a Jesuit college in Paris, he also became an officer, but spent more time in the theatre and with actresses and courtesans than in the countryside. To refill the coffers of his family finances, he allowed himself to be married to a wealthy noblewoman, Renée Pélagie de Montreuil. But in 1763, the year of his marriage, a scandal of morals led to his first brief visit to the Bastille.

MARQUIS DE SADE

Intelligent, literate, a lucid analyst but also a spendthrift, egotist and unbridled pleasure-seeker, Donatien Alphonse François de Sade (1740-1810) was insensitive to the limits society would tolerate. It was in prison that he became a writer, and it was after his death that his name became that of a sexual perversion, even before the emblematic work of ‘sadism’ was known. This is thanks to the 120 Days of Sodom, written clandestinely in a state prison.

The text of The 120 Days of Sodom was first published in 1904. Thanks to the fascinating history of the manuscript, its belated publication and the cursed legend surrounding its author, this founding text of Sade’s work has become a classic, with an immense posthumous fortune that has had a profound impact on creators such as Paul Éluard, André Breton, Georges Bataille, Maurice Blanchot, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Annie Le Brun and Philippe Sollers.

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Copies Sold
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Awards
Le Prix Sade 2001

En hommage au marquis de Sade

World’s #1 Best-selling Book

Liberté, égalité, sexualité

Best-selling erotic Author 2024

Pauline Mari remporte la récompense générale pour L’Art assassin.

Erotic Author Awards 2025

Un prix pour un livre qui déjoue l’ordre moral et se veut hors des carcans de la littérature et de la société.

1791

Justine, ou les Malheurs de la vertu 

After being released from his prison and narrowly escaping the guillotine, it was his publications (Justine, La Nouvelle Justine, Histoire de Juliette) that earned Marquis de Sade a new imprisonment by order of Napoleon.

1904

Les 120 journées de Sodome

The text of The 120 Days of Sodom was first published in 1904. Thanks to the fascinating history of the manuscript, its late publication and the cursed legend surrounding de Sade, this founding text of Sade’s work has become a classic.

1920s

Best selling erotic books

While Paris was the city that set the fashion trends for Europe and North America during the Roaring Twenties, during which Josephine Baker danced in Un vent de folie, many intellectuals, writers and people of good standing devoured the books of De Sade as well as other erotic novels.

1954

Histoire d’Or

The French novel Histoire d’O is published, which is in the tradition of those of De Sade but this time written by a woman. The book was awarded a major French literary prize in 1955: le Prix des Deux-Magots.

1950s – 1970s

My First Award

Cras amet amet in egestas nibh vestibulum feugiat bibendum tempus ut ultricies risus aliquam vestibulum malesuada vitae sit.

2001

World’s #1 Erotic Award: Le Prix Sade

Created in 2001, Le Prix Sade is awarded to a work that ‘thwarts the moral order and seeks to break out of the shackles of literature and society’. 

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