Justine (de Sade novel) was an early work by the Marquis de Sade, written in two weeks in 1787 while imprisoned in the Bastille. It is a novella (187 pages) with relatively little of the obscenity that characterized his later writing, as it was written in the classical style (which was fashionable at the time), with much verbose and metaphorical description. A much extended and more graphic version, entitled "Justine ou Les Malheurs de la vertu" (1791) (English title: "Justine, or The Misfortunes of the Virtue" or simply "Justine"), was the first of de Sade's books published. A further extended version, "La Nouvelle Justine
18th century in literature 18th century in literature Literature of the 18th century refers to world literature produced during the 18th century. European literature of the 18th century refers to literature (poetry, drama, satire, and novels) produced in Europe during this period. The 18th century saw the development of the modern novel as literary genre, in fact many candidates for the first novel in English date from this period, of which Daniel Defoe's 1719 "Robinson Crusoe" is probably the best known. Subgenres of the novel during the 18th century were the epistolary novel, the sentimental novel, histories, the gothic novel and the libertine novel.