The 120 Days of Sodom: An Unfinished Manuscript on Power, Transgression, and the Limits of Reason

An unfinished eighteenth-century manuscript presenting an extreme and controversial exploration of power, excess, and moral transgression within the context of Enlightenment-era thought. Written in 1785 during the author's imprisonment, The 120 Days of Sodom takes the form of a structured narrative in which a group of libertines withdraw from society to enact a systematised catalogue of behaviours intended to test the limits of human conduct.

The work is notable less for conventional narrati...