Venus in Furs

Severin von Kusiemski, a European nobleman desires to be enslaved to a woman. Severin finds his ideal of voluptuous cruelty in the merciless Wanda von Dunajew. This book portrays one man's struggle to enlighten and instruct himself and others in the realm of desire. First published in 1870, this notorious novel--which gained its author immortality when the word "masochism" was coined from his name--was influential on Sigmund Freud, Thomas Mann, and Arthur Schnitzler, and it remains a classical literary statement on sexual submission and control. Reprint.