StoryofO

Praise for Story of O “That Pauline Réage is a more dangerous writer than the Marquis de Sade follows from the fact that art is more persuasive than propaganda.… Aiming only to reveal, to clarify, to make real to the reader those dark and repulsive practices and emotions that his better self rejects as improbable or evil, Pauline Réage succeeds in drawing us irresistibly into her perverse world through the magnetism of her own selfless absorption in it. Like some exquisitely balanced, gently undulating instrument, she carefully inscribes the cruel shocks inflicted on her heroine’s refined sensibility—and we believe.” —The New York Times Book Review “An ironic fable of unfreedom, a mystic document that transcends the pornographic and even the erotic … [it] is so horrifying, outraging cherished beliefs in the sanctity of the body and in personal freedom. … To give the body, to allow it to be ravaged, exploited and totally possessed, can be an act of consequence.” —Newsweek “The free publication of Story of O in this country is an event of considerable importance. It is a significant measure of how far we have come in lifting the restrictio......