Les Liaisons dangereuses (1782)

Dangerous Liaisons, originally Les Liaisons dangereuses, lets the same writer adjust a performance for different recipients. A letter can seduce, recruit an accomplice or become evidence when it reaches another pair of hands. The pleasure is in comparing those audiences and the gap between a declared motive and a private boast. An especially sharp choice for correspondence as an instrument of power, with sexual coercion and cruelty central.