Justine (Sade)

Justine, or The Misfortunes of Virtue

Frontispiece by Philippe Chéry and title page of the first edition
Author	The Marquis de Sade
Original title	Les Infortunes de la Vertu
Translator	Pieralessandro Casavini
Country	France
Language	French
Genre	Libertine, erotic, gothic
Publisher	J. V. Girouard
Publication date	1791
Followed by	Juliette

Justine, or The Misfortunes of Virtue (French: Justine, ou Les Malheurs de la Vertu) is a 1791 novel by Donatien Alphonse François de Sade, better known as the Marquis de Sade. Justine is set just before the French Revolution in France and tells the story of a young woman who goes under the name of Thérèse. Her story is recounted to Madame de Lorsagne while defending herself for her crimes, en route to punishment and death. She explains the series of misfortunes that led her present situation.

Justine (original French title: Les infortunes de la vertu) was an early work by the Marquis de Sade, written in two weeks in 1787 while imprisoned in the Bastille. It is a novella (187 pages) with relatively little of the obscenity that characterized his later writing, as it was written in the classical style (which was fashionable at the time), with much verbose and metaphorical description.

A much extended and more graphic version, entitled Justine ou Les Malheurs de la vertu (1791) (English title: Justine, or The Misfortunes of the Virtue or simply Justine), was the first of de Sade's books published.

A further extended version, La Nouvelle Justine ou Les Malheurs de la vertu (The New Justine), was published in the Netherlands in 1797. This final version, La Nouvelle Justine, departed from the first-person narrative of the previous two versions, and included around 100 engravings. It was accompanied by a continuation, Juliette, about Justine's sister. The two together formed 10 volumes of nearly 4000 pages in total; publication was completed in 1801.

Napoleon Bonaparte ordered the arrest of the anonymous author of Justine and Juliette, and as a result de Sade was incarcerated for the last 13 years of his life. The book's destruction was ordered by the Cour Royale de Paris on May 19, 1815.

There is standard edition of this text in hardcover, having passed into the public domain. The text itself is often incorporated into collections of de Sade's work.