Dangerous liaisons

Pierre Choderlos de Laclos' tale set in France during the Ancien Regime before the revolution of 1789 is an extraordinary tale of intrigue and moral depravity told in epistolary form.

Sparring with one another, the two main protagonists - the Marquise de Mertheuil and the Vicomte de Valmont - scheme and plot; one obsessed by her own vanity, the other by his lust for a virtuous, married woman, Mme de Tourvel.

In the pursuit of their own entertainment, de Mertheuil and de Valmont play a dangerous game of seduction, attempting to manipulate the objects of their desire, including Mme de Tourvel's daughter, the innocent Cecile de Volanges and her music tutor, the handsome Chevalier Danceny.

Deemed in later years to be something of a political novel that showed the aristocracy for what it really was, this is also a powerful psychological drama showing that those who live by the sword, often die by it.