Synopses & Reviews
A delightfully illustrated literary anthology that explores the fantasies, seductions, and intrigues of the eighteenth-century French loverThis sumptuous volume presents more than eighty selections from eighteenth-century French literature, each concerning some facet of the game of love as practiced by the libertine, or the freethinking aristocratic hedonist, a type that flourishednot least in literaturein the declining years of the Ancien Régime. These pieces, which include fiction, drama, verse, essays, and letters, are the work of some sixty writers, both familiarsuch as Voltaire, Rousseau, and, of course, the Marquis de Sadeand lesser-known. Each selection is illustrated by well-chosen period artworks, many rarely seen, by Watteau, Boucher, Fragonard, and numerous others.
Review
"Highly recommended for sophisticated readers, art historians, and Francophiles."
Library Journal
Review
"Delons anthology
display[s] the dazzling breadth and depth of the 18th-century obsession with pleasures of the flesh.
Certainly The Libertine is as lavish with its sumptuous illustrations of luscious Rococo nudes and other toothsome lovelies as an 18th-century bal masqué. But Delons analogy understates the dizzying diversity of the balls invitees. Priapic peasants, depraved duchesses, masked miscreants, sexy sylphs, coy mistresses, foot fetishists, human sofas (!) and a surprising abundance of naughty nuns: These raunchy revelers engage in one decadent mating dance after another, tirelessly chasing it,” and gamely explaining why it matters."
The New York Times
"Highly recommended for sophisticated readers, art historians, and Francophiles."
Library Journal
"The most seductive book published this year. A boudoir coffee-table book that will put your guests in the proper frame of mind."
Playboy
"Prepare to be seduced by The Libertine, a swoon-worthy tome that celebrates the French practice of amour. A parade of frolicking lovers gorgeously reproduced."
Newsday, holiday gift guide selection
Synopsis
This sumptuous volume presents more than eighty selections from eighteenth-century French literature, each concerning some facet of the game of love as practiced by the libertine, or the freethinking aristocratic hedonist, a type that flourished--not least in literature--in the declining years of the Ancien R gime. These pieces, which include fiction, drama, verse, essays, and letters, are the work of some sixty writers, both familiar--such as Voltaire, Rousseau, and, of course, the Marquis de Sade--and lesser-known. Each selection is illustrated by well-chosen period artworks, many rarely seen, by Watteau, Boucher, Fragonard, and numerous others.
Racy, thought-provoking, and a treat for the eyes, The Libertine is the perfect gift for litterateurs, art lovers, rou s, and coquettes.
About the Author
Michel Delon, professor of French literature at the Sorbonne, is the author of several studies of the eighteenth-century libertine. He has edited the works of Diderot and Sade for the Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, as well as Routledges
Encyclopedia of the Enlightenment.