Play produced by the Royal Shakespeare Co. in 1985 based on the Laclos novel.

One of the most `modern' of eighteenth-century novels, Les Liasons Dangereuses is the brilliantly observed and vividly rendered story of two libertines and the innocent characters they plot to destroy.

Une histoire choquante de la manipulation et de vengeance, Les Liaisons Dangereuses suit les sch mas de la marquise du Merteuil contre son ancien amant, le vicomte de Valmont. La paire d'aristocrates vie pour la supr matie dans la manipulation des autres; employant la s duction et de tentation que leurs armes, leur est de d shonorer les autres dans les yeux de la classe sup rieure de la soci t fran aise. Pour sa part, Merteuil est d termin ternir la r putation de la jeune C cile, qui a jusqu'ici men une vie pure dans un couvent. Les deux C cile et son int r t pour l'amour, la musique pr cepteur Chevalier Danceny, sont involontairement utilis s dans les r gimes cruels de Merteuil et Valmont. Ce qui suit est une histoire de tension remplie d'amoralit , la tromperie, la jalousie et la honte. L'histoire est enti rement racont e travers des correspondances entre les personnages, de sorte que le r cit et les v nements se d roulent.

One of the most `modern' of eighteenth-century novels, Les Liasons Dangereuses is the brilliantly observed and vividly rendered story of two libertines and the innocent characters they plot to destroy.

Published in 1782, just years before the French Revolution, Les Liaisons Dangereuses is a disturbing and ultimately damning portrayal of a decadent society. At its centre are two aristocrats, former lovers, who embark on a sophisticated game of seduction and manipulation to bring amusement to their jaded existences. While the Marquise de Merteuil challenges the Vicomte de Valmont to seduce an innocent convent girl, the Vicomte is also occupied with the conquest of a virtuous married woman. But as their intrigues become more duplicitous and they find their human pawns responding in ways they could not have predicted, the consequences prove to be more serious, and deadly, than Merteuil and Valmont could have guessed.

The complex moral ambiguities of seduction and revenge make Les Liaisons dangereuses (1782) one of the most scandalous and controversial novels in European literature. Its prime movers, the Vicomte de Valmont and the Marquise de Merteuil--gifted, wealthy, and bored--form an unholy alliance and turn seduction into a game. And they play this game with such wit and style that it is impossible not to admire them, until they discover mysterious rules that they cannot understand. In the ensuing battle there can be no winners, and the innocent suffer with the guilty. This new translation gives Laclos a modern voice, and readers will be able to judge whether the novel is as "diabolical" and "infamous" as its critics have claimed, or whether it has much to tell us about a world we still inhabit.
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