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This scarce antiquarian book is a selection from Kessinger Publishing's Legacy Reprint Series. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment to protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature. Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone! ... Read more

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This volume is produced from digital images created through the University of Michigan University Library's large-scale digitization efforts. The Library seeks to preserve the intellectual content of items in a manner that facilitates and promotes a variety of uses. The digital reformatting process results in an electronic version of the original text that can be both accessed online and used to create new print copies. The Library also understands and values the usefulness of print and makes reprints available to the public whenever possible. This book and hundreds of thousands of others can be found in the HathiTrust, an archive of the digitized collections of many great research libraries. For access to the University of Michigan Library's digital collections, please see http://www.lib.umich.edu and for information about the HathiTrust, please visit http://www.hathitrust.org ... Read more

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Chapters: John Sentamu, Charles Gore, John Leonard Wilson, Ernest William Barnes, Bishop of Birmingham, David Andrew Urquhart, Mark Santer, Henry Russell Wakefield, Hugh Montefiore, Lawrence Ambrose Brown. Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 46. Not illustrated. Free updates online. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: John Tucker Mugabi Sentamu (pronounced: SEN-ta-moo; born 10 June 1949) is the 97th Archbishop of York, Metropolitan of the province of York, and Primate of England. He is the second most senior cleric in the Church of England, after the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams. Sentamu was born in 1949 in a village near Kampala, Uganda, the sixth of thirteen children. He read law at Makerere University, Kampala, and practised as an advocate of the High Court of Uganda. Dr Sentamu practised both law at the Bar and at the Bench until 1974. He incurred the wrath of the dictator Idi Amin because of his judicial independence and was locked up for 90 days, three weeks after his marriage. In a speech in 2007 he described how during that time he had been "kicked around like a football and beaten terribly", saying "the temptation to give up hope of release was always present". In 1974 he fled to the United Kingdom. He read theology at Selwyn College, Cambridge (BA 1976, MA 1979, PhD 1984). He trained for the priesthood at Ridley Hall, Cambridge, being ordained a priest in 1979. His doctoral thesis is entitled Some aspects of soteriology, with particular reference to the thought of J.K. Mozley, from an African perspective. He worked as assistant chaplain at Selwyn College, as chaplain at a remand centre and as curate and vicar in a series of parish appointments before his consecration, in 1996, as Bishop of Stepney (a suffragan see in the Diocese of London). It was during this time that he served as advisor to the Steph...More: http://booksllc.net/?id=2061593 ... Read more

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High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! ErnestWilliam Barnes (1 April 1874 - 29 November 1953)was an English mathematician and scientist who later became a theologian and churchman. He was educated at King Edward's School, BirminghamandTrinity College, Cambridge. He was Master of the Temple from 1915 to 1919. He was made Bishop ofBirmingham in 1924, the only bishop appointed duringRamsay MacDonald's first term in office. His modernistviews,in particular objection to Reservation, led toconflictwith the Anglo-Catholics in his diocese. ... Read more

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Illustrated By L. J. Bridgman, L. C. McClure And Anita Pettibone. ... Read more

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Orig. printed in 1947; contains 14 stories ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (59)

A Great Book, Better in French
Any translation is going to be less than the original if the writer of the original had any skill with words. Laclos wrote extremely well, so it is inevitable that an English translation runs the risk of being heavy-handed in comparison with the original text. Alas, this translation is indeed a lesser production.But, despite that fact, it's worth reading unless you can come by a better version. Two hundred years ago the epistolary novel was all the rage (in English, Richardon's Pamela was the non plus ultra of the genre, though many including myself far prefer Fielding). Laclos' work stands head and shoulders above all other epistolary novels in any European language. Not only is the device, in his hands, quite believable but the human observation is far more acute and true to life than anything else being written at that time. Far from echoing the conventions of plot and character typical of his era, Laclos writes what he knows to be true.And this is the novel's enduring appeal.

The heart of the story is essentially an emotional chess game played by two well-matched adversaries who formerly were, briefly, lovers. The Marquise de Merteuil, an older woman, is playing against the Vicomte de Valmont, a dashing younger rake. Laclos brilliantly enables us to see the intrinsic egoism of both protagonists and at the same time their emptiness and frailty. Even as Valmont seems to be moving smoothly from one conquest to another, Merteuil is playing his own ego against him, exploiting a weakness he simply doesn't see until too late. Merteuil exhorts Valmont to seduce the most faithful woman in France, telling him that it will be his ultimate triumph. And Valmont, like a proud and vain little boy, does just that - but in the process comes to a vague awareness that this woman (the Madame de Tourvel) can offer him something far greater than a living sheath for his rampant organ. He glimpses an adumbration of true love. Merteuil detects this from his letters and of course is threatened to her core. She gave Valmont only her skills as a seductress; Tourvel could give him so much more. So Merteuil plays her finest move: she plays on Valmont's enormous ego to persuade him to break Tourvel's heart and thus prove himself to be the ultimate rake.Valmont, lacking sufficient emotional resources to be his own man at this crucial point, does as he is bid - and then realizes that he's thrown away the only thing that really mattered in his entire life.

The sub-plots are satisfying and the characters are finely drawn. There are moments of cruel humor and even bawdy pathos, though such a thing sounds improbable in the abstract. The denouement is as awful as it is inevitable, and Merteuil is left the meaningless victor of a game in which all the pieces have been smashed beyond redemption.

This is not a book to appeal to those who want fantasies about human nature, or who require happy endings. But for anyone interested in a surgical examination of human foibles and the degree to which self-deception can go, this is a must-read. And for anyone who can read French, of course it's so much better to go to the original than to have to wade through a fairly insipid translation.

The Kindle Edition is in French - Not English
I purchased this and unfortunately found that in the Kindle edition the text is in French rather than english.Very disappointing.

Delightful
If you thought the movie 'Cruel intentions' had a badly-behaved cast of characters, this book will top it. Such actions might seem tame today, but remember that the morals of 18th-century Europe were rather different than today. It's funny to read about Valmont and de Merteuil egg one another on and write about their naughty deeds. Such is the ennui of the bored, rich folk, alas. But overall a satisfying and enjoyable read, provided that the 18th-century language and writing style doesn't turn you off.

"I like persons with no principles better than anything else in the world."
That is one of Oscar Wilde's many famous quotes, and if it was true, then Oscar would have been delighted to meet the main characters of LES LIAISONS DANGEREUSES. I certainly was.

The Marquise de Merteuil and the Vicomte de Valmont are wicked, possibly evil, and yet (and this can be attributed to Laclos's literary genius) they will probably become the characters you end up rooting for. Laclos, during his life, continued to insist that this novel was written for instructional purposes, a sort of this-could-happen-to-you type thing, but I'm not so easily fooled. Laclos, throughout the story, points out which characters are good and upstanding or plainly innocent (Tourvel, Rosemonde, Volanges) but he really wants you to hate these characters, and he uses the subtle language in their letters to achieve this. On the other hand, he makes the 'bad' characters (Valmont, Merteuil) more charming using the same technique. In other words, I believe that Laclos was trying to test his readers' principles. You know that what the Vicomte and the Marquise are doing is wrong... but you can't help wanting them to succeed and get away with it. You are bending your own morals because--while their victims are annoying and gullible--you find them to be witty, clever, and charming. And these are just fictional characters. What would happen if you met such people in real life?, Laclos seems to be asking.

Clever though they may be, Valmont and Merteuil eventually reach a point in their twisted game where they cannot control it, and though they were once unholy allies, they become sworn enemies out of spite. They have already ruined so many other people, and now the time has come to ruin each other. [SPOILER WARNING] However, Merteuil, probably the more wicked of the two, gets away with her life, which is more than can be said for Valmont. There is even a note in the back of the book which suggests that she even overcame her deformities (caused by smallpox) and continued her way of life in Amsterdam. [END SPOILERS] They are not the only ones to suffer. Their victims are all brought down by their scheme, in different ways and in varying degrees of disaster. Again, Laclos uses his deceptive writing skill to make it seem like these characters deserved their fates because of their stupidity or naivete, without actually saying this at all. The reader ends up feeling worse for Valmont and Merteuil, who undoubtedly deserved their punishments. It is almost impossible to describe what Laclos has done in a review. You must read the actual novel in order to feel the sheer genius in it, the way he conveys meaning between the lines, without actually writing anything out to that effect. It really is like nothing I've ever seen before.

If I could give this masterpiece more than five stars, I would. This is the art of literature at its finest, and Laclos will have you under his spell the whole way through.

Dangerous Liasons is a epistolary novel on seduction and adultery from the time of Louis XVI and decadence in French aristocracy
Dangerous Liasons was published in 1782 in France just seven years before the French Revolution toppled the aristocratic world in depicts with slicing irony and wit. It is an epistolary novel meaning that it contains nothing but letters written by the characters. In these letters De Laclos reveals the characters of the novel in their most intimate moments of literary labor. The epistolary novel was popular in the eighteenth century as is manifested by such works as Samuel Richardson's Clarissa and Pamela. The form was much loved by Miss Jane Austen.
This novel tells the sordid story of two arch monsters in the high reaches of the French aristocracy. Valmont and Madame Merveuil are erstwhile lovers who enjoy playing amorous games with the foolishly naive characters they seek to trap in their nefarious net. Merveuil seeks to have Valmont seduce young Cecile who is about to be married to a rich soldier who has been jilted by Merveuil. Valmont also plans on seducing a married woman who resides on an estate in the French countryside. Valmont ends us seducing both women with tragic consequences for all concerned.
Valmont is killed in a duel by another lover of Cecile. Cecile enters a convent while her young lover goes to Malta. Madame Merveuil is banished by Paris society, becomes ill, loses an eye and is forced to flee to Holland. Justice is served as the cruel characters meet their fate though they do irreparable harm to those innocents who have been the mice to their cattish plots.
The novel is divided into four parts with almost 200 letters included. It is as if the reader is allowed to open the mail of these characters!
The book deals strictly with the romantic entanglements of the major figures. Social and political concerns are not discussed; it is clear, howevere, that the society in this novel is topheavy with lazy and amorous aristocrats who have nothing better to do than engage in sexual imbroglios.
De Laclos holds your attention as we sink into the depths of moral depravity with the odious Valmont. The book has been made into an excellent film with Annette Benning and John Malkovich in the title roles. This is an excellent French classic novel. ... Read more