Venus in Furs & Selected Letters by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch

TRADE PAPERBACK [1989] GROVE PRESS

Book is in excellent condition.  Light wear to cover & clean white unmarked pages.

Included in this volume is a selection from a remarkable series of letters between Leopold von Sacher-Masoch and Emilie Mataja, an aspiring writer, translated into English for the first time, and an extraordinary insight into the compulsive imagination of Sacher-Masoch grappling with the demons that both torment and delight him.  This translation of Venus in Furs was originally published in 1928.

'Venus in Furs' describes the obsessions of Severin von Kusiemski, a European nobleman who desires to be enslaved to a woman. Severin finds his ideal of voluptuous cruelty in the merciless Wanda von Dunajew. This is a passionate and powerful portrayal of one man's struggle to enlighten and instruct himself and others in the realm of desire. Published in 1870, the novel gained notoriety and a degree of immortality for its author when the word "masochism" - derived from his name - entered the vocabulary of psychiatry. This remains a classic literary statement on sexual submission and control.