These [How to Read] books let you encounter thinkers eyeball to eyeball by analysing passages from their work' Terry Eagleton, New Statesman

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).