His works include novels, short stories, plays, dialogues, and political tracts. Some of these were published under his own name during his lifetime, but most appeared anonymously or posthumously. Born into a noble family dating from the 13th century, Sade served as an officer in the Seven Years' War before a series of sex scandals led to his detention in various prisons and insane asylums for most of his adult life.
During his first extended imprisonment from to , he wrote a series of novels and other works, some of which his wife smuggled out of prison. On his release during the French Revolution, he pursued a literary career and became politically active, first as a constitutional monarchist then as a radical republican. During the Reign of Terror he was imprisoned for moderatism and narrowly escaped the guillotine.
He was re-arrested in for his pornographic novels and was eventually incarcerated in the Charenton insane asylum where he died in His major works include The Days of Sodom , Justine , Juliette and Philosophy in the Bedroom , which combine graphic descriptions of sex acts, rape, torture, murder and child abuse with discourses on religion, politics, sexuality and philosophy.
The word sadism derives from his fictional characters who take pleasure in inflicting pain on others. There is debate over the extent to which Sade's behavior was criminal and sadistic. Peter Marshall states that Sade's "known behaviour which includes only the beating of a housemaid and an orgy with several prostitutes departs greatly from the clinical picture of active sadism.
Interest in his work increased in the 20th century, with various authors considering him a precursor to Nietzsche , [ 8 ] Freud , surrealism , totalitarianism , [ 9 ] and anarchism. Sade's father was a captain of dragoons who was entrusted with diplomatic missions to the Russian Empire , Britain and the Elector of Cologne. His career was now in ruins and his wife eventually left him to live in a Carmelite convent in Paris.
