Complexity is one of the virtues of this new and lengthy biography ... Schaeffer's book is a welcome addition to the literature ... Both sophisticated and hardheaded about Sade; it has a definitive quality to it. It is the strength of Schaeffer's biography that it makes Sade not just a notorious figure but a credibly heroic one as well.
   --Richard Bernstein, New York Times

As riveting as a tightly drawn historical novel...well researched and accessible.
   --Publishers Weekly

By separating the facts of Sade's life from the mythology and establishing a social context for the libertine excesses of Sade's age, [Schaeffer] may have written the most fearlessly sympathetic portrait of the man yet...He wields the most subversive tool yet employed in any discussion of the Marquis: compassion.
   --Doug Wright, San Francisco Chronicle

Neil Schaeffer is Professor of English Literature at Brooklyn College.