Venus in Furs (Barnes & Noble Library of Essential Reading) »

Leopold von Sacher-Masoch was born on January 27, 1836, at the Eastern fringes of the multinational, multiethnic, and multireligious Hapsburg Empire. Tolerance and cosmopolitanism are values that underpin his writing, from his early works as an academic historian, to his sympathetic literary portrayals of Jewish ghetto life in Galicia, to his erotic fictions. At the peak of a prolific career, Sacher-Masoch was considered a Realist of the first tier and was respected and admired on the international scene by authors including Victor Hugo, Emile Zola, and Henrik Ibsen. In 1883, he was awarded the prestigious Cross of the Legion of Honor, but by the time of his death his reputation was compromised, in no small measure due to his name's association with the word "masochism.

Most of us are familiar with the term "masochism," but few have read the scandalous story that gave a name to the fetish: Leopold von Sacher-Masoch's novella Venus in Furs (Venus im Pelz), first published in Stuttgart, Germany, in 1870. A sensational depiction of an erotic passion that defies the norms of nineteenth-century sexuality and gender, the story charts the stages of masculine obsession and collapse, leading a cultivated European aristocrat from his fantasy of abasement at the hands of a domineering woman to a climax of brutal physical violence. It remains a foundational work of modern culture, defining a sexual perversion while also offering a critical lens through which to view persistent structures of masculinity and power.