"This volume of Sade's correspondence from prison covers a thirteen-year period, from 1777 when he was incarcerated in the Vincennes fortress near Paris, to 1789 when he was transferred from the Bastille shortly before it was stormed at the outset of the French Revolution, to the Charenton insane asylum, from which he was finally freed on April 2 - Good Friday - 1790.

From ever danker and drearier cells, even as his health declined with each passing year, Sade wrote with supreme eloquence and increasing bitterness about the harsh conditions he was forced to endure, using his pen as a deadly weapon to lash out at his tormentors."--BOOK JACKET.