Dangerous Liaisons

For the Marquise de Merteuil and the Vicomte de Valmont seduction is a game - the former lovers relish manipulating others to bring amusement to their jaded existences. While Valmont is determined to succeed in his conquest of a virtuous married woman, Merteuil challenges him to seduce an innocent convent girl who is to be married to her former lover. As their intrigues become increasingly duplicitous and they find their human pawns responding in ways they could not have predicted, the consequences prove to be more serious, and deadly, then the two conspirators could have guessed. Depicting decadence and moral corruption in pre-revolutionary France, Dangerous Liaisons (1782) is one of the most scandalous and controversial novels in European literature.
In her introduction, Helen Constantine discusses the amorality of Dangerous Liaisons, its epistolary structure and timeless appeal. This edition also includes a chronology of Laclos's life, works and literary antecedents, suggestions for further reading, and explanatory notes covering the background to the story.

Choderlos de Laclos (1741-1803) entered the army at the age of eighteen and reached the rank of capitaine-commandant without seeing battle. He was sent to the island of Aix, where Dangerous Liaisons was written.
Helen Constantine, current chairman of the Translators' Association, has translated Theophile Gautier's Mademoiselle de Maupin for Penguin Classics.