This was a fascinating read! I had very little knowledge of The Marquis de Sade beyond his connection to the term sadism and the play Marat/Sade. Joel Warner presents a compelling tale of a man who believes himself beyond reproach and a man of the twentieth century who sees himself as beyond reproach. The intertwining of the path 120 days sodom into the hands of the French government with the men and women obsessed with the book and the man who wrote the book you will receive a full picture of just how it has impacted society. I would encourage anyone interested in true crime and the darker corners of history to check this book out!

I knew nothing about the Marquis de Sade when starting this book, but boy did I learn! Warner wrote a fascinating biography of a strange and twisted man. I would recommend for anyone interested in history and/or wanting a shocking read.

Realy enjoyed this book and I think it will have a good audience at my library. Great nonfiction title. Definitely will be ordering.

This is a really fascinating story that I think really dragged on. More for scholars than the common reader. 4/10, would just read the wikipedia page or watch a documentary next time.

The Marquis de Sade was an absolute maniac. A lot of people have tried to justify him as a free thinker, an artist, a revolutionary, someone on the cutting edge of everything. I think he just did whatever he wanted because he couldn't control himself and damn the consequences. I don't think he was that deep. Similarly, people try to say that 120 DAYS OF SODOM is a work of literature, pushing boundaries, and cataloguing the variety of human sexuality. I've read the book. I think Sade just wanted to document his sexual fantasies and then retreat into the corner of his cell in the Bastille with his custom dildoes (fun fact I learned in this book) and have himself a good time. He also perpetrated actual harm on actual people! No murder, as far as anyone is aware, but definitely kidnapping, assault, sexual assault, poisoning, rape, and who knows what else. The French government hanged and burned him in effigy because they couldn't catch him! And I find him incredibly interesting to read about.

And he continued to inspire mania in others long after his death. People are fascinated by his life and make important political and scientific decisions because of him and his work. And the manuscript of 120 DAYS OF SODOM, famously lost in the storming of the Bastille, has just as intense a legacy as the person who wrote it. Joel Warner traces the movements of the scrolled manuscript throughout history, and it has certainly had an interesting journey.

The book is equal parts a biography of Sade and the tracing of this manuscript. I found both parts fascinating. Sade's life was a trainwreck of pleasure seeking gone awry. And the manuscript changed hands many times, intersecting with NAZIs, Sade's direct descendants, investment schemes, and more. My favorite part of the book is that Warner takes the time to detail the people involved in a very fun way, and lets himself go off on historical tangents that were so information. For instance, I had NO idea that there was such a vibrant queer community developing in post-WWI Berlin, and that the country was on the verge of decriminalizing homosexuality before it collapsed and the NAZIs took over.

Anyway, this was one of the most entertaining non-fiction books I've ever read, so I'm definitely buying myself a copy and will be re-reading in the future.

I had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Joel Warner about his incredibly well-researched book "The Curse of the Marquis de Sade" for the Storytime in Paris podcast on Paris Underground Radio. This is what I said:

Ep 54. Joel Warner, “The Curse of the Marquis de Sade”

My guest this week is journalist and author Joel Warner, whose latest book The Curse of the Marquis de Sade recounts the true story of how the Marquis de Sade’s book 120 Days of Sodom landed at the heart of one of the biggest scams in modern literary history in a French Ponzi scheme. Joel’s book is incredibly well-researched and weaves together tales from the Marquis’s life, the adventures of the scroll 120 Days of Sodom was written on, and the world of letter and manuscript collecting.

Was the Marquis de Sade a revolutionary, a radical philosopher, a proto-feminist, or an unrepentant criminal? Was 120 Days of Sodom “one of the most important novels ever written” or “the gospel of evil?” In our conversation, Joel answers these questions, and so many more. Then, he treats us to a reading from his book.


You can find the full interview at parisundergroundradio.com/storytimeinparis, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Warner details the history of The 120 Days of Sodom, a scroll written in the Bastille by the notorious Marquis de Sade, the man who inspired the word "sadism." The life of the Marquis is intimately intertwined with the life of the scroll, which seems to curse anyone who owns it. An interesting well-written book, The Curse of the Marquis de Sade shows a side of history that is not usually discussed in school. Although I enjoyed the story, I wish I could have known the end of all the characters. Unfortunately, the author could not wait for the French legal system to finish the book, or he could be waiting forever.

Review will be included in "Reading Lately March 2023" on booklistqueen.com

An interesting look at the world of rare manuscripts and the life of the notorious Marquis de Sade.

This is a combination of light biography of Sade and a recent history of manuscript sales and collecting. Most of the stuff about Sade’s work doesn’t interest me specifically, as I’m not a big believer in the”genius of insanity” and already knew the academic biographical basics coming in. What is interesting, though, is the attitudes and laws that influenced this manuscript’s path, as well as those of others of a somewhat similar nature.

There’s some interesting stuff here about the appeal of collecting Erotica and rare Pornography, which is often more about the rarity of the manuscript than about its content. How popular opinion about these things evolves over time is also fascinating. To me, these attitudes toward collecting are the most interesting part of this book.

The relatively recent fate of Sade’s manuscript and its connection to a sorts kinda Ponzi scheme involving a French dealer and auction house was less interesting to read about than I would have anticipated, but still somewhat compelling in parts. To call it the “biggest scandal in literary history” is patently absurd, but subtitles gonna subtitle, I suppose.

I disagree with reviewers who said this was dry and boring, and I think the author did a lovely job of making this a compelling read in the narrative sense without compromising the quality of information. The supposed “scandal” doesn’t quite pass muster from an entertainment value standpoint or an academic one, but the book as a whole is an excellent read.

Disclaimer: I received an ARC via Netgalley.
Warner’s highly readable and entertaining book chronicles the life of Sade’s 120 Days of Sodom. Along the way, Warner details the life of Sade as well as the lives of some of the men (and one of the two woman) who owned the scroll that Sade’s work was written on.
I haven’t read Sade’s work, but it seems from the description both here and in general that to call 120 Days simply pornographic would be an overstatement. It is apt that Warner includes Pamela Handsford Johnson’s observation that “There are some books that are not fit for all people, and some people who are not fit for all books” because as Warner points out, that pretty much describes Sade’s 120 Days.
The story of the scroll is perhaps more entertaining that that Sade himself. Sade’s popularity seems to come from, at least in part, the shock value as well as the debatable agency of certain female characters (see Angela Carter whose criticism about Sade gets a mention in Warner’s work). In many ways, Sade was a typical bad man whose sins (including rape and possibly more than one murder) seem to be outweighed by his contributions to culture (in this, case literature). Reading about France’s celebration of Sade, especially after reading Vanessa Spingora’s Consent, was, to put it mildly, interesting and frustrating (and it also explained much about how she was treated).. It is to Warner’s credit that he depicts Sade warts and all, and never lets the reader forget exactly what Sade stood accused of, how Sade manipulated people, and what exactly was is and the responses to 120 Days. Warner presents the arguments about literary and cultural value but never lets the reader forget who exactly Sade was (you could ague that by writing this book Warner has taken a side about literary importance).
The sections about the journey of the scroll of 120 Days are fascinating. Hidden the Bastille the scroll is smuggled or stolen after the fall of the prison, and then struggles to find an owner. Needless to say, most of these owners and would be owners were men of certain means who also liked to collect porn. It makes for some interesting readings, especially how booksellers would sometimes circumvent the laws about selling pornographic material. (The bit about France being a country of book lovers was a great section too). Eventually the scroll though legal and not legal ways, finds itself under the ownership of the group Aristophil, an investment group in documents. And then things get really interested.
The curse in the title isn’t so much like the curse of King Tut, but more like how the Scroll is cursed (or blessed, depending on your point of view) to be connected to a variety of people who are not so much interested in legalities. And that, as always, makes for interesting reading.
It’s true that the book’s structure might put some readers off. It does do time jumps, but usually in alternate chapters. But if you don’t mind that, it is a rather interesting tale told rather well.

Locked away in a tower in the Bastille in 1785, Donatien Alphonse François furiously scribbled 157,000 words on 33 sheets of paper in just 37 days, his handwriting so cribbed that it was barely intelligible to the naked eye.

By the time revolutionaries took over the infamous French prison four years later, François, better known as the Marquis de Sade, was imprisoned at a nearby mental hospital, but the pages he’d filled — stretching 40 feet when the paper was stitched together — remained behind. A citizen from Provence found the writing, a violently pornographic novel titled “120 Days of Sodom,” hidden at the Bastille and removed it, sparking an overlapping sequence of some of the most notable controversies and scandals in literary history.

“The Curse of the Marquis de Sade,” Joel Warner’s book on the surrounding dramas, is equal parts biography, history and true crime. It tracks not just the story of the novel and its notorious writer but the role it played in a massive French Ponzi scheme.


Warner follows three timelines in alternating histories. The first depicts the life of François, a man whose cruelty inspired the word “sadism.” The second follows the text’s journey across Europe. And the third traces the rise and fall of Aristophil, a French company that purchased rare manuscripts and sold shares of them at inflated prices to an unsuspecting public.

Spanning hundreds of years and multiple countries, “The Curse of the Marquis de Sade” is impressive in scope. Warner admirably keeps all the storylines moving, and a list of characters included at the beginning of the book is a helpful reminder of who’s who in each timeline.

The strongest sections of the “The Curse of the Marquis de Sade” focus not on the titular nobleman but on the history of his most famous manuscript. It survived the storming of the Bastille and (several twists later) was smuggled out of Germany just before the Nazis took over.

Along the way, Warner highlights the influence “120 Days of Sodom” had on generations of scholars and artists. Iwan Bloch, an early sexologist who translated and published the outrageous novel for the first time in 1904, rose to prominence by railing against Germany’s somewhat liberal attitudes toward sex and homosexuality in the late 1800s and early 1900s. But Bloch underwent a transformation: “The seeds of those misgivings arose from, of all places, ‘120 Days of Sodom,’” Warner writes. “Sade’s recounting of myriad sexual activities at all levels of French society seemed to suggest that sex wasn’t just a matter of right or wrong, moral or depraved, but existed on a wide spectrum.” Bloch went on to collaborate closely with the gay rights pioneer Magnus Hirschfeld.


Joel Warner, author of “The Curse of the Marquis de Sade.” (Evan Semon)
Later, “120 Days of Sodom” inspired noted filmmaker Luis Buñuel and artist Salvador Dali to create “L’Age d’Or,” a surrealist, satirical movie that condemned traditionalist values and the Catholic Church. Their funders were the Noailles, a wealthy couple who owned the infamous manuscript at the time. At a screening in December 1930, right-wing protesters set off smoke bombs, destroyed paintings by Dali and Joan Miró, and screamed “Death to Jews!” and “This will teach you there are some Christians left in France!”


Fans of John Carreyrou’s “Bad Blood” or “Billion Dollar Loser” by Reeves Wiedeman will probably enjoy the final thread of “The Curse of the Marquis de Sade,” which documents how Gérard Lhéritier went from the son of a plumber to the “king of manuscripts,” only to be accused of running a Ponzi scheme. Driven by a belief that technology would drive up the value of handwritten items, Lhéritier began collecting manuscripts. He purchased letters from Albert Einstein and Napoleon, as well as a book by a 14-year-old Charlotte Brontë. Through his company, Aristophil, Lhéritier sold “shares” of these documents, promising investors huge returns. Authorities claim that his actions destabilized the global market for rare manuscripts and artificially drove up prices. In 2014, shortly after acquiring the crown jewel of his collection, none other than the original “120 Days of Sodom,” Lhéritier was arrested for allegedly running a Ponzi scheme. The case is still working its way through the French court system.

Warner excels at explaining Lhéritier’s complex — and possibly criminal — business operations in easy-to-understand language. And his depiction of France’s lively rare-manuscript community is a fascinating look at a largely hidden subculture.

“The Curse of the Marquis de Sade” at times feels disjointed and fragmented, with chapters jumping 100 years forward in the timeline and then back again. The shifting chronology creates a sense of mystery but can also make for a somewhat confusing reading experience. Still, given the breadth of the book’s subject matter, Warner admirably ties his three storylines together, showing how and why “120 Days of Sodom” became a holy grail for book collectors.


Early in the book, Warner defines “bibliophiles” as people who view books not just as “conduits of information” but as “treasures in their own right.” Anyone who finds themselves identifying with that definition will want to give “The Curse of the Marquis de Sade” a try.

A real-life history of both the Marquis de Sade and the twisted story of his long-lost manuscript sounds like an intriguing tale. However, the organization of The Curse of the Marquis de Sade was so confusing, it was a hard book to read.

If you don’t know already, de Sade was a blatant sexual predator who preyed on sex workers and the young. That alone will set off many readers’ triggers. However, if you are already interested in him, the subject, the time period, or old manuscripts, you might enjoy reading The Curse of the Marquis de Sade. To each their own, but for me the book receives 3 stars.

Thanks to Crown Publishing and NetGalley for a digital review copy of the book.

I thought I knew about de Sade. I had no idea! A fascinating read! Not just for the portrait of the Marquis but for the picture of the time period.

A very tough one to get into, I anticipate that this will make a handful of history nerds and literature buffs out there positively giddy with anticipation. The author is well primed for those readers, with a well-informed and somewhat thick prose. Thank you to both Netgalley and the publisher for an opportunity with this title.

An engaging look into the legacy of Marquis de Sade and his works. This book primarily focuses on three main parts, bouncing back and forth across the timeline and yet tying them all together. One part discusses the life of Marquis de Sade and how his behavior was seen as both emblematic of the aristocracy of the time and yet also out of the norm. Another part looks at the path and influence of one of his most famous works, 120 Days of Sodom, as the scroll makes it way through history changing owners and influencing various fields of study. Lastly, throughout the book, Warner tells the tale of the rise of Aristophil, a firm that purchased manuscripts and other documents of importance and sold shares of them at inflated values to investors with the expectation of high return later on. Aristophil's purchase of 120 Days of Sodom was one of the reasons the company was investigated and charged with criminal behavior. Overall a fascinating tale of how one man's out of the ordinary manuscript influenced people and was possibly part of one of France's largest Ponzi schemes.

Joel Warner’s new book, The Curse of the Marquis de Sade: A Notorious Scoundrel, a Mythical Manuscript, and the Biggest Scandal in Literary History (Crown Publishing 2023) is an incredible, thoroughly researched book whose story spans hundreds of years. The twists and turns of this novel are truly stranger than fiction and I was hooked until the very end.

Warner’s book initially appears to be about many things, but primarily it recounts the history of one of the most notorious manuscripts in the world: Marquis de Sade’s 120 Days of Sodom. Sade was a notorious French aristocrat, who became famous for his debauchery and criminality, eventually ending up in the Bastille in Paris just before the French Revolution. There, Sade penned the manuscript that he saw as his greatest transgression: 120 Days of Sodom, a thoroughly controversial and depraved text of sexual violence and—to use the term Sade himself coined—sadism. Left abandoned during the storming of the Bastille in 1789, the tiny scroll was left hidden and tightly rolled until it was discovered by someone unconnected to Sade. This discovery marked the beginning of a centuries long journey across the world. Warner takes us through different buyers and sellers, the hidden networks of erotic literary collectors and archivists, Nazi book burnings, and more. Eventually, we arrive in 2014, when the manuscript is returned to France, having been purchased by Gérard Lhéritier, a self-made man who had become deeply involved with the rare book market. However, the sale eventually led to more complications in the form of government vendettas, sabotage, feuds, and more.

I could not have enjoyed this book more, and I am convinced it is going to be one of my favourite true crime reads of the year. Warner expertly weaves history, literature, and narrative together to craft a story that was equally insightful and captivating. That Warner chooses to tell the story of the manuscript in a way that also tells the stories of Sade, rare books in France, and erotic literary collections, was especially successful. This is a story not many know, or would not know in full, and Warner is able to capture key elements of a history than spans hundreds of years through a focus on just one manuscript. For those two are aware of Sade and his writings, The Curse of the Marquis de Sade is an absolutely thrilling window into his biography. Warner is concise, definitive, and thorough; indeed, the notes and citations for the book are extensive, representing his careful research.

As Warner writes, his book aims to answer the following questions:

“Why would someone have written something so appalling that it was all but unreadable? Why would anyone have bothered with such a herculean effort at a time when the results could never be published? And who exactly was the man behind it? Was Sade a revolutionary, working to expose the rotten core of the aristocracy to which he had been born? Was he a radical philosopher, aiming to lay bare humanity’s most cruel and twisted desires? Or was he simply an unrepentant criminal, chronicling his own atrocities, committed or simply dreamed of?” (Warner)

In pursuit of these answers and more, The Curse of the Marquis de Sade jumps across time, with each chapter, we’re in a new time or place that adds to the fabric of this story. Warner’s choice to work non-chronologically keeps the story moving, and rather than confuse the reader, it gives the impression of a story’s disparate elements coming together, all connected via the manuscript that has inspired so much controversy, infighting, and international attention.

Historians and pleasure readers alike will absolutely enjoy Warner’s writing, and this story has to be read to be believed!

Please add The Curse of the Marquis de Sade to your Goodreads shelf and follow Joel Warner on Twitter.

Don’t forget to follow True Crime Index on Twitter and please visit our Goodreads for updates on what we’re reading! You can find Rachel on her personal @RachelMFriars or on Goodreads @Rachel Friars.

About the Writer:

Rachel M. Friars (she/her) is a PhD student in the Department of English Language and Literature at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario. She holds a BA and an MA in English Literature with a focus on neo-Victorianism and adaptations of Jane Eyre. Her current work centers on neo-Victorianism and nineteenth-century lesbian literature and history, with secondary research interests in life writing, historical fiction, true crime, popular culture, and the Gothic. Her academic writing has been published with Palgrave Macmillan and in The Journal of Neo-Victorian Studies. She is a reviewer for The Lesbrary and the co-creator of True Crime Index. Rachel is co-editor-in-chief of the international literary journal, The Lamp, and regularly publishes her own short fiction and poetry. Find her on Twitter and Goodreads.

A digital copy of this book was graciously provided to True Crime Index from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

An interesting story! I wish the "prologue" part (not really a prologue since it's not a novel) had been more captivating. I think a really good hook would have made me more invested off the rip.

My thanks to both NetGalley and the publisher Crown Publishing for an advanced copy of this book of history on one of history's most infamous authors, his works, legacy and those who tried to profit and collect him, but found their lives changed in many ways.

There are few authors whose names bring up so many thoughts in a person's head just be hearing the name. A name that has been adapted to both a noun, an adjective and a name for a medical disorder. An author's whose works have been burned, banned by courts, returned to courts to decide ownership, declared culturally important, and yet still used by B movie directors as grist for their movies. The legacy of Sade is shows the power of words, that even two hundred years later this author and his book can bring down financial institutions, be involved in law suits all over Europe, raised to museum levels, and sill be banned in parts of America. Joel Warner writer, journalist and editor in his book The Curse of the Marquis de Sade: A Notorious Scoundrel, a Mythical Manuscript, and the Biggest Scandal in Literary History, examines the life of one of history's most famous libertines, and the legacy one of his book has cast even in this century.

Donatien Alphonse François Marquis de Sade was a nobleman, writer, rebel, and a man of many appetites and lack of control. Born into a life of nobility and leisure Sade explored all that life could offer him in arts of love and desire, wherever, whenever he felt and darn the consequences. As much a fugitive and a professional prisoner as a writer, his exploits were legendary, leading him to be killed in effigy once, nearly executed for real, and leaving him in various mental institutions, even the famous French prison, the Bastille. During his occupancy at the Bastille de Sade wrote his most infamous book 120 Nights of Sodom, book that was written in parchment, in small print on both sides, and adhered together to make one long scroll. Thought lost Sade mourned that his greatest work was lost. However it was not, and the scroll changed hands numerous times, changing lives, destroying fortunes, being infamous, and now a respected artifact in France.

This book covers a tremendous amount of history, on Sade, the history and lure of pornography on people who view themselves as collectors, literary and manuscript collections and financial crimes. The book jumps in time each chapter nicely headlined what the chapter is about either Sade, the Scroll, or the Empire of Letters, which is good as the reader knows what will be discussed in each chapter. Warner has an ability to discuss Sade, financial lawsuits, and the history of antiquarian bookshops in Paris, equally, and the book is filled with a lot of information, and was far more enjoyable than I thought it would be. Sade can be a little overwhelming and dare I say dull, but this book never was. I have never heard of the idea in investing in manuscripts like on would invest in say crypto currency, and like crypto was much too good to be true. A very different history, but one I really enjoyed.

This is a whole lot more than a peep at a dirty book and the weirdo who made it. One gets a profile of Sade, the book, collectors, the market, French history and more. Recommended for people who like books on the literary trade, France, and Sade.

I went into The Curse of the Marquis de Sade knowing very little about its eponymous subject — I read Justine when I was twenty or so (and remember nothing of it), and I saw my daughter perform in a university production of Marat/Sade (so I knew something of his time in the Charenton Asylum) — and knew nothing at all about the novel, The 120 Days of Sodom, described here — about four libertines who enslave a group of mostly children and sexually torture them for a month — so I found the twin stories that Joel Warner relates about the life of Sade and the history of this manuscript to be entirely shocking, fascinating, and stranger than fiction. Deeply researched and engagingly related, Warner uses the life of the Marquis de Sade — and the bibliophiles who would eventually stop at nothing to acquire his handwritten manuscript — to explore questions about art and freedom and obsession, and I loved the whole thing.