Choderlos de Laclos

Choderlos de Laclos was a French novelist, official and army general, best known for Les Liaisons dangereuses (Dangerous Liaisons), an epistolary novel from 1782 about aristocrats who scheme through their letters. For a long time he was considered as scandalous a writer as the Marquis de Sade, and he was a military officer with few illusions about human relations. The novel has since inspired critical commentary, plays and films, which fulfilled his hope of writing something that would outlive him.