Smart, witty, charming, Laclos's villains are almost as seductive to the reader as to their victims. Yet in this epistolary novel, their voices largely dominate. It caused an international scandal, and with reason: Its two main characters, Parisian aristocrats the Vicomte de Valmont and the Marquise de Merteuil, are amoral libertines who toy with people and ruin lives for sport.
What, then, is this book that acts as such a magnet to the modern imagination? Les Liaisons dangereuses was the first, and only novel, by Laclos, an army officer from the minor nobility. A revival of Liaisons, imported from London, is currently playing on Broadway, and there is talk of a Christopher Hampton-scripted BBC miniseries based on the novel. Add to this Chinese and Korean films, a 2003 French modern-day miniseries, two operas, and several ballets. The 1988 Stephen Frears film Dangerous Liaisons, a luxurious star-studded screen version of the play, was followed by Miloš Forman's lightweight Valmont, and then by Cruel Intentions, transplanted into the world of 1990s privileged American teenagers. Les Liaisons dangereuses, the 1782 novel of sexual intrigue by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos, has become one of the most adapted literary classics in the two decades since it was reincarnated as a hit play by the British dramatist Christopher Hampton.