Set against the impending riptide of the French Revolution and composed while Sade was imprisoned in the Bastille, Aline and Valcour is a sprawling and intellectually sweeping work. Unlike 120 Days of Sodom, the famous scroll that lay concealed in his cell as he wrote, while not pornographic, Aline and Valcour embodies the multiple themes and ideas that would become the hallmark of Sade's far more sulfurous Juliette and Philosophy in the Bedroom...