Pécuchet Press, 2022
978-1-7397669-0-0  (paperback)
978-1-7397669-1-7 (kindle)
978-1-7397669-2-4  (ebook)

Read the original Story of the Eye

George Bataille’s novella, Story of the Eye, originally published under the pseudonym ‘Lord Auch’ in 1928, is still his most notorious work. In this explicit pornographic fantasy, the young male narrator and his lovers Simone and Marcelle embark on a sexual quest involving sadism, torture, orgies, madness and defilement, culminating in a final act of transgression. Shocking and sacrilegious, Story of the Eye is the fullest expression of Bataille’s obsession with the closeness of sex, violence and death. Yet it is also hallucinogenic in its power, and is one of the erotic and surreal classics of the twentieth century.

The Penguin edition includes Susan Sontag’s well-regarded essay, ‘The Pornographic Imagination’, as well as Roland Barthes’ excellent study of Bataille’s work, ‘The Metaphor of the Eye’.

Georges Bataille (1897-1962), French essayist and novelist, was born in Billom, France. He converted to Catholicism, then later to Marxism, and was interested in psychoanalysis and mysticism, forming a secret society dedicated to glorifying human sacrifice. Leading a simple life as the curator of a municipal library, Bataille was involved on the fringes of Surrealism, founding the Surrealist magazine Documents in 1929, and editing the literary review Critique from 1946 until his death. Among his other works are the novels Blue of Noon (1957) and My Mother (1966), and the essays Eroticism (1957) and Literature and Evil (1957).