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Whimsical Pornography: Albert Dubout's Illustrations For Sade's Justine, Olivier M. Delers

Languages, Literatures, and Cultures Faculty Publications

In Dangereux supplement: I 'illustration du roman en France au dixhuitieme siecle, Christophe Martin explains that images were generally considered to be dangerous additions to a text, because they could not be limited to their intended primary purpose: to provide a visual translation for characters and events depicted in works of fiction.¹ For even as they illustrate, images also offer a reading that necessarily shapes the reader's perception of a novel. In the process, the images themselves become texts with their own complex system of signification. As such "supplements" go, illustrations of Donatien Alphonse Francois de Sade's novels …