Dangerous Liaisons , subtitled Letters collected in a society and published for the instruction of some others , is an epistolary novel written by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos and published in 1782 .
This major literary work of the xviii th century , which tells the evil duo of two noble manipulators, rakes and libertines of the Enlightenment , is considered a masterpiece of French literature, although it fell in a quasi -oubli during most of the xix th century before being rediscovered in the early xx th . Novel inscribed in the tradition of libertinism of morals illustrated by Crebillon son , novel of psychological analysis in the line of the New Heloise ofJean-Jacques Rousseau , he brings to a degree of perfection the epistolary form: no element is gratuitous, each letter writer has his style and the polyphony of crossed correspondences constructs a drama in four stages with a morally ambiguous conclusion 1 , which continues to fascinate the reader and to encourage many adaptations.