Brief Lives: Marquis de Sade

By David Carter

As explicit in his prose as he was in his private life, the Marquis de Sade remains one of the most controversial writers of all time. This new biography, by the acclaimed translator and author David Carter, promises to shock as much as it informs. Arrested many times for sexual misdemeanors, the Marquis de Sade was imprisoned in the Bastille, where he was writing 120 Days of Sodom and The Misfortunes of Virtue at the time that it was stormed in 1789. After the French Revolution he was again imprisoned and sent to an asylum, where he wrote diaries and plays. This concise biography offers a fresh look at a relentlessly compelling figure with a fascinating life of scandal and imprisonment.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Hesperus Press Ltd.
• Release date: Jun 1, 2011
• ISBN: 9781780940151

David Carter

David Carter (1952-2020) had a varied career as a writer, editor, and filmmaker. He is best known as the author of Stonewall: The Riots that Sparked the Gay Revolution, considered to be the authoritative book on the subject. He is also the author of biographies of Salvador Dali and George Santayana, he edited and compiled Spontaneous Mind, a collection of interviews with Allen Ginsberg, and directed the film Meher Baba in Italy for Peter Townshend. Carter has a B.A. from Emory University and an M.A. from the University of Wisconsin. He lived in Greenwich Village in New York City.