I wrote Neil Schaeffer, the well-known author of the latest big biography of our favourite Marquis, called: The Marquis de Sade, a life. This is some of the things I wrote to him in an e-mail primarily concerning the flawed "biographic movie" Quills;
I am by no standard any biographist, and I care less about de Sade’s actual life than what he wrote himself.
With the delicate ways of Voltaire and seemingly unlimited amounts of imagination, he placed himself on the map of noteworthy readers in mankind’s history as he was forced to see himself as human and did not keep his revelations to himself. (Revelations he knew would shock but enlighten, one could add.)
Today I got a reply! Schaeffer said, among other things:
I very much enjoyed reading your letter about Sade.
It is wonderful that he remains fresh and challenging even to this day.
You can visit Schaeffer’s website on www.neilschaeffer.com where you can also read the vast amounts of letters that the Marquis wrote to his wife.
See especially Le Grande Lettre.