A Judge Deceived

by Marquis de Sade

In this rare novella by the Marquis de Sade, a marriage is arranged between the aging Judge de Fontanis and a young woman, Mademoiselle de Teroze, who (unbeknownst to him) is in love with someone her own age. The young woman and her brother-in-law (the Marquis d'Olincourt) perpetrate a series of cruel practical jokes, humiliating hoaxes and elaborate schemes in order to deceive the judge and stop him from consummating the marriage.

This amusing tale is an artfully written and beautifully-structured literary attack on arranged marriages and on the judiciary.

A Judge Deceived is one of Sade's most savagely satirical works.

174 pages, Paperback

First published January 28, 2023

About the author

A preoccupation with sexual violence characterizes novels, plays, and short stories that Donatien Alphonse François, comte de Sade but known as marquis de Sade, of France wrote. After this writer derives the word sadism, the deriving of sexual gratification from fantasies or acts that involve causing other persons to suffer physical or mental pain.

This aristocrat, revolutionary politician, and philosopher exhibited famous libertine lifestyle.

His works include dialogues and political tracts; in his lifetime, he published some works under his own name and denied authorship of apparently anonymous other works. His best erotic works combined philosophical discourse with pornography and depicted fantasies with an emphasis on criminality and blasphemy against the Catholic Church. Morality, religion or law restrained not his "extreme freedom." Various prisons and an insane asylum incarcerated the aristocrat for 32 years of his life: ten years in the Bastile, another year elsewhere in Paris, a month in Conciergerie, two years in a fortress, a year in Madelonnettes, three years in Bicêtre, a year in Sainte-Pélagie, and 13 years in the Charenton asylum. During the French revolution, people elected this criminal as delegate to the National Convention. He wrote many of his works in prison.