A novel of seduction, manipulation and social warfare, told entirely through letters.

Laclos’s eighteenth-century classic follows the Marquise de Merteuil and the Vicomte de Valmont as they turn desire into strategy, intimacy into leverage, and other people into pieces on a board. The scandal is cold and powerful. Its characters understand that language can seduce, conceal, humiliate and destroy; each letter is both confession and weapon. Beneath the aristocratic gamesmanship is a darker study of reputation, gender, vanity and the pleasures of control.

This is the Richard Aldington translation, originally issued in this form by New Directions in 1957.

New Directions, Norfolk, Connecticut, 1957. New Directions Paperbook No. 61. Paperback. Translated by Richard Aldington. Noticeable rubbing, creasing and edge wear to covers, with small chips and scuffs; pages evenly toned. Binding remains sound and text is clean. Good condition.