Barbara Foster, Michael Foster, and Letha Hadady are writers and scholars who themselves are involved in an ongoing, loving partnership and are thus remarkably well suited as commentators on this unconventional lifestyle. In this book based on extensive research, they trace the menage a trois over the centuries - both in real life and as portrayed in art - and offer a deft and compelling portrait of threefold love.

In addition, they reveal the truth about the world's best-known trios, from biblical patriarch Abraham, his wife Sarah, and the handmaiden Hagar to Henry and June Miller and Anais Nin and even Beat writer Jack Kerouac and Neal and Carolyn Cassady.

The authors differentiate clearly between a love triangle and a menage a trois: the "bloody" triangle generally springs out of an affair or adultery, and one of the three is excluded. In a menage, on the other hand, all three participants have equal status and input, and, most important the relationship is entered into by mutual decision and consent.