The secret journal which the Marquis de Sade risked severe punishment in order to maintain at Charenton asylum reveals the shadowy life of an exceptional, complex man whose philosophies and works are legendary. In the hospitalprison' of Charenton, under a liberal regime of surveillance, Sade's days were slow and grim, but were also lit up by the sordid, secret episodes of a final erotic adventure. Only the first and fourth of his notebooks have been rediscovered, and they are now presented in English for the very first time.'