Marquis de Sade
Also known as Donatien Alphonse François de Sade, Comte de Sade, Donatien Alphonse François, Marquis de Sade
French nobleman, revolutionary politician, philosopher and writer of erotic works
AI overview
The Marquis de Sade was an 18th-century French nobleman who became known for writing explicit sexual material while also participating in the French Revolution and developing philosophical ideas. His work has remained controversial and influential in discussions about sexuality, freedom of expression, and the limits of literature, making him a significant—if polarizing—figure in cultural history.
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Person · Open Library
- Born
- 2 June 1740
- Died
- 2 December 1814
- Works
- 655
Top works
- La philosophie dans le boudoir
- 120 Days of Sodom
- The Marquis de Sade
- Dialogue entre un prêtre et un moribond et autres opuscules
- Crimes de L'Amour
via Open Library + Wikidata
Film & TV
Writing · Paris, France
Born a rich nobleman, Marquis being his title rather than his birth name, De Sade gradually became a decadent libertine among the French society of Louis XVI. A liberally educated iconoclast, he wrote prose and verse, and specialized in testing the limits of decency, breaking taboos and shocking the aristocracy, often with sordid details drawn from real life. He was thought to have committed much…
Known for
- Everything you always wanted to know about Sade2021
via TMDB
Music · MusicBrainz
- Type
- Group
- Origin
- France
- Active from
Article
Donatien Alphonse François, Marquis de Sade (/sɑːd, sæd/ SA(H)D; French: [dɔnasjɛ̃ alfɔ̃s fʁɑ̃swa maʁki də sad]; 2 June 1740 – 2 December 1814) was a French writer, libertine, political activist, and nobleman best known for his libertine novels and imprisonment for sex crimes, blasphemy, and pornography. His works include novels, short stories, plays, dialogues, and political tracts. Some of these were published under his own name during his lifetime, but most appeared anonymously or posthumously.
Born into a noble family dating back to the 13th century, Sade served as an officer in the Seven Years' War before a series of sex scandals led to his detention in various prisons and insane asylums for most of his adult life. During his first extended imprisonment from 1777 to 1790, he wrote a series of novels and other works, some of which his wife smuggled out of prison. On his release during the French Revolution, he pursued a literary career and became politically active, first as a constitutional monarchist then as a radical republican. During the Reign of Terror, he was imprisoned for moderatism and narrowly escaped the guillotine. He was re-arrested in 1801 for his pornographic novels and was eventually incarcerated in the Charenton insane asylum, where he died in 1814.
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1740 births1814 deaths18th-century French criminals18th-century French dramatists and playwrights18th-century French LGBTQ people18th-century French male writers18th-century French novelists18th-century French philosophers19th-century French criminals19th-century French dramatists and playwrights19th-century French LGBTQ people19th-century French novelists