Dangerous Liaisons (Wordsworth Classics) - Softcover

De Laclos, Pierre Choderlos

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1840227311 ISBN 13: 9781840227314

Publisher: Wordsworth Editions, 2014

Synopsis

In this famous story of seduction, two highly intelligent but amoral French aristocrats plot the downfall of a respectable young married woman and a fifteen year old girl who has only just emerged from the convent.  The letters these two conspirators exchange are remarkably frank in describing how they manage to achieve their ends and, at the same time, reveal nuances of character which make it impossible to dismiss either of them as simply evil.  Those written by their victims are equally revelatory in a quite different and subtle way, while the manner in which Laclos handles the epistolary form in order to ensure that his two protagonists are finally defeated, not by outside forces, but the fissures in their own relationship, is a triumph of narrative skill.  This novel poses shrewd questions about the relation between love and sex, and suggests that, in certain sections of eighteenth century French high society, idleness, boredom and wealth had created individuals whose misfortunes it would be hard to regret when, only seven years after Dangerous Liaisons was published, the Revolution broke out.

Blurb by David Ellis

About this title

Review

If this book burns, it burns as only ice can burn.
Baudelaire

aIf this book burns, it burns as only ice can burn.a
aBaudelaire

"If this book burns, it burns as only ice can burn."
-Baudelaire

-If this book burns, it burns as only ice can burn.-
-Baudelaire

From the Back Cover

The complex moral ambiguities of seduction and revenge make Les Liaisons dangereuses (1782) one of the most scandalous and controversial novels in European literature. Its prime movers, the Vicomte de Valmont and the Marquise de Merteuil, gifted, wealthy, and bored, form an unholy alliance and turn seduction into a game - a game which they must win. And they play with such wit and style that it is impossible not to admire them - until they discover that the game has mysterious rules that they cannot understand. In the ensuing vicious battle there can be no victors, and the innocent will suffer with the guilty. This new translation gives Laclos a modern voice, and readers will be able to judge whether the novel is as 'diabolical' and 'infamous' as its critics have claimed, or whether it has much to tell us about the kind of world we ourselves live in.

Edition details

• Publisher: Wordsworth Editions
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 1840227311
• ISBN 13: 9781840227314
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 400