THE PARIS REVIEW, Sade & Teen Erotica

Here's a recent tweet from The Paris Review and my reply:

The tweet links to this post:

And here's a relevant excerpt from Nymphalis carmen: Nympholepsy in Nabokov’s Oeuvre:

Appel noted [in The Annotated Lolita] that “Sade’s Justine" is a reference to Justine, or, The Misfortunes of Virtue (1791) by the Marquis de Sade (1740-1814) and that Justine was: “an extraordinarily resilient young girl who exists solely for the pleasures of an infinite succession of sadistic libertines. She undergoes and array of rapes, beatings, and tortures […]” (442)

And Quilty shared with H.H.: “[…] I am a playwright. I have written tragedies, comedies, fantasies. I have made private movies out of Justine and other eighteenth century sexcapades.” (298)

Justine wasn’t the only nymphet who was abused in Justine, or, The Misfortunes of Virtue (1791). There were others. Here’s an excerpt that will serve as a fitting example: “Hardly have we taken up our post when Rodin enters, leading a fourteen-year-old girl, blond and as pretty as Love; the poor creature is sobbing away, all too unhappily aware of what awaits her […]” (536)

The number of NSFW warnings in the The Paris Review tweet are justified. The illustrations are too salacious - even for this blog. However, here's a modified image of two nymphet lipstick lesbians.