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Austryn Wainhouse


Austryn Wainhouse (6 February 1927 - 29 September 2014) was an American author, publisher and translator, primarily of French works and most notably of the Marquis de Sade. He sometimes used the pseudonym Pieralessandro Casavini.

Following his graduation from Harvard University, Wainhouse traveled around Europe before settling in Paris where he worked for Maurice Girodias at Olympia Press. His wife Mary, known as Muffy or Muffie, also worked for Girodias. They divorced in 1959.

In 1960, some time after Wainhouse had returned to the United States, Gay Talese described him as

Wainhouse and his wife, Deborah Clayton Wainhouse, returned to the south of France in 2001, where he lived until his death in September 2014.

In the early 1950s, Wainhouse worked for Maurice Girodias at Olympia Press in Paris, and later was an editor of the short-lived literary magazine Merlin.

Wainhouse produced the first unexpurgated English translation of the Marquis de Sade's Justine for Olympia Press in 1953. In 1955 the controversial erotic French novel Histoire d'O (Story of O) by Pauline Reage (a pseudonym for Anne Desclos), won the prestigious Prix des Deux Magots award for unconventional books. Wainhouse was hired to provide a second translation. In order to thwart the censors and protect the author and translator, Girodias changed the title to The Wisdom of the Lash.

After his return to the United States, Wainhouse embarked on a translation of Sade's entire oeuvre for Grove Press, including Justine, The 120 Days of Sodom, and Letters from the Bastille. The translation was well-received, with one reviewercalling it "appropriately and agreeably prolix."


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