Erotic literature Lifted Curtain or Laura's Education", about a young girl's sexual initiation by her father, written by the French revolutionary politician Comte de Mirabeau; also Les Liaisons dangereuses (Dangerous Liaisons) by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos, first published in 1782. In the late 18th century, such works as "Justine, or the Misfortunes of Virtue" and "120 Days of Sodom" by the Marquis de Sade were exemplars of the theme of sado-masochism and influenced later erotic accounts of Sadism and masochism in fiction. De Sade (as did the later writer Sacher-Masoch) lent his name to the sexual acts which he describes in his
The Virtue of Selfishness The Virtue of Selfishness The Virtue of Selfishness: A New Concept of Egoism is a 1964 collection of essays by Ayn Rand and Nathaniel Branden. Most of the essays originally appeared in "The Objectivist Newsletter". The book covers ethical issues from the perspective of Rand's Objectivist philosophy. Some of its themes include the identification and validation of egoism as a rational code of ethics, the destructiveness of altruism, and the nature of a proper government. The idea of creating a collection of Rand's essays initially came from Bennett Cerf of Random House, who had published two of Rand's previous books,