{"product_id":"2026200017497-secondhand-justine-or-the-misfortunes-of-virtue","title":"Justine: Or The Misfortunes Of Virtue","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eCondition remarks:\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBook: Good\u003cbr\u003eJacket: No dust jacket\u003cbr\u003ePages: Good\u003cbr\u003eCondition remarks: Condition as shown in image\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFew works in the history of Western literature have provoked as much controversy, fascination, and philosophical reckoning as Justine, or The Misfortunes of Virtue — the scandalous masterwork of the Marquis de Sade. The novel chronicles the harrowing odyssey of Justine, a young and incorruptibly virtuous French woman, whose steadfast moral convictions bring her not reward but relentless persecution, suffering, and exploitation at the hands of libertines, corrupt clergy, and ruthless aristocrats in pre-Revolutionary France. Presented in this complete and unexpurgated translation by Alan Hull Walton, the text is rendered with unflinching fidelity, allowing the full force of de Sade's savage philosophical argument to land on the modern reader without dilution.\n\nDe Sade wields Justine's torment as a scalpel, dissecting Enlightenment optimism and exposing the brutal indifference of a universe that punishes innocence and rewards vice — a nihilistic inversion of the moral universe championed by his contemporaries. The novel stands as a foundational, if deeply transgressive, document of libertine philosophy and Gothic sensibility, arguing with relentless black irony that virtue is not its own reward, but its own punishment. Shocking, darkly satirical, and philosophically audacious, Justine remains one of literature's most unsettling and indelible provocations — a text that once read, refuses to be forgotten.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Secondhand Stock","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49216210338011,"sku":"2026200017497-SECONDHAND","price":10.0,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0523\/7646\/9701\/files\/585a1ea6-11c9-4fb2-b4f8-255bf267e894.png?v=1788405408","url":"https:\/\/bookgrocer.com\/products\/2026200017497-secondhand-justine-or-the-misfortunes-of-virtue","provider":"Book Grocer","version":"1.0","type":"link"}