"In this collection of essays, first published in France in 1957, Georges Bataille explores the value of evil as expressed in literature. 'Literature is not innocent,' Bataille writes in his preface. 'It is guilty and should admit itself so. ' It is only by acknowledging its complicity in the knowledge of Evil that literature can communicate fully. This idea is explored through a series of remarkable studies on the work of eight outstanding authors; Emily Bronte, Baudelaire, Blake, Michelet, Kafka, Proust, Genet and de Sade. "--BOOK JACKET.