A collection of short stories written by de Sade while he was in the Bastille, this is quite different from his more famous works. The subject matter is similar, in that the stories deal with adulterous affairs and "deviant" sexuality (take that "deviant" how ever you like, since it's all a matter of perspective in these matters), but these are actually funny. They reminded me of Boccaccio's Decameron or one of my bawdy favorites, Fablieux Fair and Foul. De Sade is obsessed with his own court case (understandably), which can get rather tedious, especially in the first (and titular) story. Nonetheless, this was much easier to read than De Sade's other work and was fairly amusing. ( )

This is the 1963 Panther edition titled "Quartet".