Les Liaisons Dangereuses, pre-French Revolution book by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos, is a morality tale told with glee
When Pierre Choderlos de Laclos' book was published in France in 1782, its tale of jaded aristocrats playing a game of seduction caused a scandal
Les Liaisons Dangereuses by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos, pub. Penguin Classics
French army officer Pierre Choderlos de Laclos is known to students of military history for his contribution to the development of the exploding artillery shell.
However, he is known to a wider world for a literary bombshell: Les Liaisons Dangereuses, as titled in the original French, is an example of the epistolary novel, which had its heyday in the 18th century.
The book created a scandal when it was first published in pre-revolutionary France, and widely thought to be an amoral or immoral work. At a time when discontent with the behaviour of the French aristocracy was gradually coming to a boil, the novel, originally published in four parts, painted a fascinating picture of two jaded aristocrats playing a game of seduction with human pawns.
The novel is written entirely in the form of letters exchanged between the characters, particularly those written by two former lovers, the scheming Vicomte de Valmont and the Marquise de Merteuil.