Aline and Valcour

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Title Aline and Valcour

"All the parts of this beautiful body were formed by the hand of the graces."
Illustration from a 1795 edition of Aline et Valcour
Author Marquis De Sade
Country France
Language French
Genre(s) Epistolary novel
Publisher
Released 1795
Media type Print (Hardback & Paperback)
ISBN NA

Aline et Valcour; ou, Le Roman philosophique is an epistolary novel by the Marquis De Sade. It contrasts a brutal African kingdom with a utopian South Pacific island paradise known as Tamoé and led by the philosopher-king Zamé.

Sade wrote the book while incarcerated in the Bastille in the 1780s. Published in 1795, it was the first of Sade's books published under his true name.

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The book was translated into English, German, Spanish and Japanese. An English version can be found in Selected writings of De Sade (New York 1954), translated by Leonard de Saint-Yves.

An essay titled "Observations on Aline and Valcour" by Alice Laborde appeared in the collection Sade, his ethics and rhetoric by Colette Verger Michael, New York 1989.

Blank darkness: Africanist discourse in French by Christopher L Miller (Chicago 1985) contains a chapter titled "No one's novel: Sade's Aline et Valcour".

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