”Literature is not innocent,” Bataille declares in the preface to this unique collection of literary profiles. “It is guilty and should admit itself so.” The word, the flesh, and the devil are explored by this extraordinary intellect in the work of eight outstanding authors: Emily Bronte, Baudelaire, Blake, Michelet, Kafka, Proust, Genet and De Sade.

Born in France in 1897, Georges Bataille was a radical philosopher, novelist and critic whose writings continue to exert a vital influence on today's literature and thought.