The Marquis de Sade

“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, The New York Times

“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, The San Francisco Chronicle

“As riveting as a tightly drawn historical novel…well researched and accessible.”—Publishers Weekly