Dangerous Liaisons, subtitled Letters collected in a society and published for the instruction of a few others, is a 175-letter epistolary novel, written by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos and published in 1782.
This major literary work of the 18th century, which narrates the perverse duo of two noble manipulators, cunning and libertines of the Age of Enlightenment, is considered a masterpiece of French literature, although it has fallen into a virtual forgotten during most of the nineteenth century, before being rediscovered at the beginning of the twentieth. Novel inscribed in the tradition of libertinism of manners illustrated by Crébillon fils, a psychological analysis novel in the lineage of La Nouvelle Héloïse by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, it brings the epistolary form to a degree of perfection: no element is free, each letter-writer has his own style and the polyphony of the crossed correspondences constructs a drama in four stages with a morally ambiguous outcome, which continues to fascinate the reader and to provoke numerous adaptations.
This major literary work of the 18th century, which narrates the perverse duo of two noble manipulators, cunning and libertines of the Age of Enlightenment, is considered a masterpiece of French literature, although it has fallen into a virtual forgotten during most of the nineteenth century, before being rediscovered at the beginning of the twentieth. Novel inscribed in the tradition of libertinism of manners illustrated by Crébillon fils, a psychological analysis novel in the lineage of La Nouvelle Héloïse by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, it brings the epistolary form to a degree of perfection: no element is free, each letter-writer has his own style and the polyphony of the crossed correspondences constructs a drama in four stages with a morally ambiguous outcome, which continues to fascinate the reader and to provoke numerous adaptations.
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