About This Book
In her first novel, Monsieur Venus, Rachilde created Raoule de Venerande, a Decadent heroine as depraved as she is resourceful and ingenious. The Marquise de Sade, published three years later, in 1887, has a female protagonist to rival Raoule in her relish for destruction and her passion for outrage. Like Rachilde herself, Mary Barbe is a cavalry officer's daughter. Barely in her teens, she is orphaned and taken to live with her elderly uncle, a man of science. As a girl in a family where only the male sex is prized, she is relegated to a life of dull seclusion in her attic room. But with the approach of womanhood, beauty, learning and an inordinate streak of ruthlessness give her the means to carve out a place in the world, and exact the cruel dues of a femme fatale.
The novel gives us a rare glimpse of female sexuality, explored not only from a decadent, but even more tellingly, from a woman's perspective.
