Roberte Ce Soir and The Revocation of the Edict of Nantes     by Pierre Klossowski, Translated by Austryn Wainhouse Original title: Roberte Ce Soir Original language: French Published by Dalkey Archive Press Pub. Date: February 1, 2002 Format: Paperback, 214 pages Dimensions: (in inches): 0.64 x 8.50 x 5.52 ISBN: 156478309X Edition: 1ST DALKEY List Price: $12.50 buy now directly from the publisher Free Shipping Worldwide Published by Grove Press Pub. Date: June 1969 Format: Paperback ISBN: 0394172574 List Price: $2.95 Not available for ordering Published by Boyars Pub. Date: 1989 Pub. Place: UK Format: Paperback, 214 pages List Price: £6.95 Not available for ordering Published by Boyars Pub. Date: 1989 Pub. Place: UK Format: Hardcover, 214 pages List Price: £13.95 Not available for ordering

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Like the works of Georges Bataille, and those of the Marquis de Sade before him, Klossowskis erotic fiction explores the connections between the mind and body. This pair of short novels merges the sexual misadventures of Octave, his striking young wife Roberte, and their nephew Antoine, with Klossowski's philosophical and theological concerns. Roberte Ce Soir is a dramatic enactment of Octave's ritual of hospitality in which Roberte offers herself to any guest who desires her, and The Revocation of the Edict of Nantes relates Roberte's predicament when she is forced to censor this same play. The resulting text represents one of the most provocative intellectual and sexual discourses of our time.

"A metaphysical sex novel."—Publishers Weekly

"The sum total of the two novels is not a philosophy or a solution, but rather a paradox of human existence. Like Gide . . . Klossowski leaves the reader with the impression tha t he is amused rather than anguished by these apparently unresolvable human dilemmas."—Choice

"It is as if Samuel Beckett had undertaken maliciously and comically to rewrite The Story of O. . . . Klossowski has a curious kinky mind and considerable skill."— Virginia Quarterly Review

"Klossowski uses all the resources of the new novelists to disorient the reader in time and blur the distinction between real and imagined events."—Library Journal

"A complex jumble of erudition and erotica, ancient traditions and radical experimentation. . . . Klossowskis words, like his characters, are free to play in the billowing currents of Eros."—Voice Literary Supplement