The following is a chronological guide to notable sadomasochistic literature about or involving BDSM—fiction and nonfiction alike. Written books and comics are included; films and video are not. Series count as one entry. Where a publication date is fuzzy, the earliest commonly cited year is used. This is not a purity test of “real” kink books; it is a working shelf of titles that shaped how readers talk about flagellation, dominance, submission, leather, and erotic cruelty.
17th Century
- 1610 — Jin Ping Mei
- 1639 — De Usu Flagrorum
- 1693 — The Carnal Prayer Mat
- 1695 — Jin Ping Mei, edited by Zhang Zhupo
18th Century
- 1749 — Fanny Hill
- 1750 — Fashionable Lectures
- 1785 — The 120 Days of Sodom
- 1791 — Justine
- 1795 — Aline and Valcour; Philosophy in the Bedroom
- 1797 — Juliette
The late-century cluster around Sade is the classical engine of philosophical libertinage, confinement, and eroticized cruelty that later centuries would label “sadism.”
19th Century
- 1828 — The Lustful Turk
- 1830 — Exhibition of Female Flagellants
- 1866 — The Romance of Chastisement
- 1870 — Venus in Furs
- 1873 — The Romance of Lust
- 1876 — The Convent School, or Early Experiences of A Young Flagellant
- 1878 — Experimental Lecture
- 1887 — The Whippingham Papers
- 1893 — Gynecocracy
- 1899 — The Memoirs of Dolly Morton; The Torture Garden
Sacher-Masoch’s Venus in Furs (1870) remains the namesake text for masochism; Victorian flagellation titles keep the English birching fantasy in print for collectors and historians.
20th Century
- 1907 — Sadopaideia
- 1908 — The Way of a Man with a Maid
- 1928 — Belle de Jour
- 1947 — Sweet Gwendoline
- 1948 — Shira
- 1954 — Nights of Horror; Story of O
- 1956 — The Image
- 1966 — Gor; Isabella
- 1973 — Gravity’s Rainbow
- 1974 — Imaginative Sex
- 1975 — Willard and His Bowling Trophies: A Perverse Mystery
- 1978 — Nine and a Half Weeks; Spectator Magazine
- 1981 — Coming to Power
- 1982 — Against Sadomasochism
- 1983 — The Piano Teacher; The Sleeping Beauty Quartet
- 1984 — 1982, Janine
- 1985 — Exit to Eden
- 1988 — Macho Sluts
- 1990 — Something Leather
- 1993 — The Ties That Bind
- 1994 — Skin: Talking About Sex, Class & Literature
- 1995 — The River Ophelia
- 1998 — A Defence of Masochism
Mid-century landmarks such as Story of O and later lesbian SM anthologies like Coming to Power and Macho sluts show the shelf splitting into high literature, underground erotica, and explicit community politics—including feminist arguments both for and against SM.
21st Century
- 2001 — Kushiel’s Legacy series
- 2003 — Snakes and Earrings
- 2004 — Terminal Avenue
- 2007 — L’Étudiante
- 2010 — The Marketplace series
- 2011 — Fifty Shades of Grey series; Sunstone
Mass-market phenomena such as Fifty Shades sit beside serial slave-contract fiction, Japanese SM novels, and graphic works like Sunstone. Related indexes cover sadism and masochism in fiction more broadly and BDSM across culture and media.
