01271nam a22001457a 4500020001800000082001000018100001900028245006600047260004400113300003300157490002900190505003800219520079700257650007101054  a9780192804693  a843.6  aPhillips, John  aThe Marquis de Sade: A Very Short IntroductioncJohn Phillips  aNew YorkbOxford University Pressc2005  axiii,141 Pagesb17x11 cmbPB  aVery Short Introductions  aIncludes Index and Illustrations.  aAn introductory chapter discusses Sade's life and the links between that and his work. Relying on the many letters he wrote to his wife and lawyer from prison and on other authentic, contemporary evidence, it attempts to disentangle this life from the various myths that Sade's demonic reputation has engendered throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This initial chapter also reviews the critical corpus or reception of the work since Sade's times up to the present, and reassesses his status as an extra-canonical writer. The following six chapters provide broad coverage of Sade's main intellectual and creative activities, showing how all can be seen as the expression of a veritable cult of the body, a veneration of the physical, and the sexual as channels of transcendence.  aSade, -- marquis de, -- 1740-1814 -- Criticism and interpretation.