Choderlos de Laclos

Pierre Ambroise François Choderlos de Laclos (1741-1803), a French novelist and artillery officer who lived intensely through the French Revolution (editing republican newspapers and pamphlets, participating in palace maneuvers, organizing protests, and being imprisoned or exiled more than once), became famous as the author of the controversial epistolary novel. Dangerous Liaisons (1782), a masterpiece of 18th-century literature and one of the first examples of a psychological novel, which exposes the amorous intrigues of the aristocracy of the Old Regime—earning it an immediate reputation for scandal, comparable only to that of the Marquis de Sade. A multifaceted and complex character, from a loving father and exemplary husband to an admirer of Rousseau and Jacobin ideas, he went on to write essays, speeches, letters, plays, a libretto, and even songs. With the texts that make up On the Education of Women (1783), left us one of the most original and fearless Enlightenment views on the female condition.