The 18th century's great novel of sexual politics. A love story embedded in a game of manipulation, where the manipulators discover too late that they've been playing for real stakes. Valmont's love for Madame de Tourvel is his first honest feeling, and it destroys him; Merteuil's fate follows the same logic. The darkest and most honest book on this list about the relationship between love and power.

The case for it, the case against, and the rest of the canon open with Pro.