Wet Angel Books (Forbidden Erotic Classics), October 2012; ISBN-10: 1902588932

Restif de la Bretonne (1734-1806) was perhaps the key author amongst a glut of imitators inspired by the publication of the Marquis de Sade’s “obscene” masterworks Juliette and Justine in the late 18th century. In 1798 Restif wrote his pornographic epic The Anti-Justine (or The Joys of Eros), thus inaugurating a long tradition of “Sadean literature” that continues to this day.

The Anti-Justine is a pornographic novelization of Restif’s own life and sexual debauches, which the author tried to defend “morally” by declaring his book to be an “antidote” to the supposed poison of de Sade; yet whilst the book opens with a spurious warning to women against cruelty, it soon develops into a monumental odyssey of sexual depravity which often rivals de Sade in its relentlessly explicit nature.

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