December 2 in Literary History: Dickens Gives First Public Reading in America

The most significant events in the history of books on the 2nd of December

1814: Marquis de Sade dies. As well as giving us the word ‘sadist’ for one who enjoys inflicting pain on others, Donatien Alphonse François, Marquis de Sade (to cite his full name) was also a novelist who wrote Justine in just two weeks in 1787, while imprisoned in the Bastille.

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