"When numerous critics have all pointed to the stunning mastery of dialogueevinced in [Sade's] novels, to say nothing of the truly theatricaldisposition of many of the scenes―erotic or otherwise―this would seem to belinked to the theatrical obsession that persisted so disturbingly throughouthis tempestuous existence. Shouldn't we therefore look more closely at thistheatre...?"- Annie Le BrunIn commemoration of the two hundred years that have passed since the deathof the Marquis de Sade in 1814, the three-volume series, Rape, Incest,Murder! The Marquis de Sade on Stage, offers English translations of all ofSade's writings, for and about the theatre, with introductions that contextualize Sade's work within the theatrical climate of eighteenth-century France.Volume 1 presents Sade's earliest theatrical efforts, ranging from occasional verse, written to accompany the plays of other authors, to his first attempts at comedy and a newly developing bourgeois tragedy called the drame. The violence and eroticism of Sade's infamous novels are present in the plays, though in a lower dosage, obviously to render them accessible to public performance rather than private reading."[I]t is at the theatre rather than somewhere else that we must revive thealmost extinguished flame of the love that every Frenchman owes his country;there is where he'll be convinced of the dangers that would exist for himshould he fall back into the hands of tyranny. He'll carry home theenthusiasm and teach it to his family and its effects will be so much moredurable, so much more passionate than the momentary inspirations of anewspaper article or proclamation because at the theatre, he learns thelesson by example, and he remembers it."- The Marquis de Sade