Ritter von Leopold Sacher-Masoch's VENUS IN FURS; Erotic Classlic Bestseller

If youve ever been curious about where the term masochism comes from, you will find it laden in the pages of Leopold von Sacher-Masochs masterpiece, Venus in Furs, for whom the term was named. Drawn in part from his own life experiences, Sacher-Masochs novel develops an eroticism unlike any other. The books protagonist, Severin, is so infatuated and obsessed with the object of his desire, Wanda, that he asks to be her slave. Although hesitant at first, Wandas treatment of Severin becomes more and more depraved, fueling Severins own desires for cruelty.


Venus in Furs (or essentially, The Education of a Young Woman) is novelist and poet von Sacher-Masochs most sublime text on the devotion of masochism-emotional, psychological, sexual-and it is a masterpiece of persuasion. Its protagonist is an educated and devout man given to whips and ideals. Severin von Kusiemskis is an unusual (and mystical) pedagogy and his Ideal is the cruel woman in furs who will allow him to be her slave; for in his rapturous acquiescence, and in his conscious guidance of both his own and his mistress will, Severin will have penetrated into the beating heart of a solitary mans deepest and most profound desires: to merge flesh with spirit, birth with death, Heaven with Hell. This classic late-nineteenth-century novel-surprisingly, rarely if ever made so accessible to English-speaking readers-is not, as popular rumor would have it, simply a lurid tale of obsessive obscenity. Nor is it merely a Victorian dream of antique decadence.
Venus in Furs (German: Venus im Pelz) is a novella by the Austrian author Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, and the best known of his works. The novel was to be part of an epic series that Sacher-Masoch envisioned called Legacy of Cain. Venus in Furs was part of Love, the first volume of the series. It was published in 1870. The framing story concerns a man who dreams of speaking to Venus about love while she wears furs. The unnamed narrator tells his dreams to a friend, Severin, who tells him how to break him of his fascination with cruel women by reading a manuscript, Memoirs of a Suprasensual Man. The novel has been adapted for film five times. The 1994 film received an award at the 1994 international film festival of Saint Petersburg, Russia.

Leopold Ritter von Sacher-Masoch (27 January 1836 — 9 March 1895) was an Austrian writer and journalist, who gained renown for his romantic stories of Galician life. The term masochism is derived from his name. During his lifetime, Sacher-Masoch was well known as a man of letters, a utopian thinker who espoused socialist and humanist ideals in his fiction and non-fiction. Most of his works remain untranslated into English. The novel Venus in Furs is his only book commonly available in English. –Wikipedia.com