120 Days of Sodom

This disturbing but hugely important text has influenced countless individuals throughout history- Flaubert and Baudelaire both read Sade; the surrealists were obsessed with him; film-makers like Pasolini saw parallels with twentieth-century history in his writings; and feminists such as Andrea Dworkin and Angela Carter clashed over him. This new translation brings Sade’s provocative novel into Penguin Classics for the first time, and will reignite the debate around this most controversial of writers.

Review: We thought this translation was quite exceptional in its capacity to capture the true voice of this strange and difficult eighteenth-century text, the textual and editorial scholarship of the translators, their wonderful handling of the terminology and the diction of the original, along with the fluency of their translation, and the ways in which it creates for the first time for Anglophone readers a properly accurate version of Sade’s text — Ian Patterson, Scott Moncrieff Prize judge A blistering new translation … This new version of the 120 Days is well overdue [and] these two dons have done a sterling job … This new, accessible 120 Days also forces us to confront ourselves * Erotic Review * An excellent translation * The Times Literary Supplement * The great merit of this edition is the thoroughly excellent translation by Will McMorran and Thomas Wynn. It has none of the phoney archaism of earlier English translations. Instead it is like a window, allowing us to have as clear of view as possible of Sade’s mind and world … In their scholarly and wise introduction, the translators are careful to emphasise the historical context … Sade’s novel feels as grimly relevant to the terrors of our age as to those of his own. * The Economist * Without in any way giving in to hyperbole, I would say that this translation is a 21st century monument, changing not only the way in which we view the French 18th century, but providing a guide to the present and future — Andrew Hussey, Scott Moncrieff Prize judge

Format: Paperback
Pages: 464
Imprint: Penguin Classics
Publication date: 29/09/2016