John Phillips is Emeritus Professor of French Literature and Culture at London Metropolitan University. He is the author of a number of books on French literature and film, including Forbidden Fictions: Pornography and Censorship in Twentieth-Century French Literature (Pluto Press, 1999), Sade: The Libertine Novels (Pluto Press, 2001), The Marquis de Sade: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2005), Alain Robbe-Grillet (Manchester University Press, French Film Directors, 2011), and a new translation of Sade's Justine, or The Misfortunes of Virtue (Oxford University Press, Oxford World Classics, 2012).

John Philips introduces the Marquis de Sade's highly original and thoroughly subversive depiction of human sexuality and the philosophical and political thinking that underpins it. He shows how, though Sade's work continues to shock, it can also be seen as the logical conclusion of eighteenth-century materialism. As the only writer of his time who dared to put the body at the centre of philosophy, Sade has a unique place in the history of modern thought. Extracts are taken form the whole range of Sade's writings, including The 120 Days of Sodom, Philosophy in the Boudoir, Juliette and his Last Will and Testament.