“What! you are going to drive me from you!” Valmont writes to the Présidente de Tourvel, pleading for one last hearing—and insisting that even her pity would be worth the price of despair. In the polished, perilous society of eighteenth-century France, private letters carry what polite conversation cannot: desire, suspicion, and the power to wound. As Valmont tries to keep Tourvel from shutting him out, the young Chevalier Danceny fears that Cécile no longer loves him; meanwhile, the Marquise de Merteuil and Valmont continue their contest of influence. Each writer must decide what to believe—and what to reveal—while a single sentence can tip the balance between devotion and ruin. In this society of practiced performances, whose words can be trusted? With centuries of literature, it's inevitable that some will fall through the cracks. We hunt down public domain works and restore them so they're not lost to the world. Who are we? We're Cairn Press. Our background is in design, publishing, typography, and technology. These skills fuel our mission to create the highest quality Public Domain eBooks available online, at an affordable price. We give them the treatment they deserve; our proprietary process restores books for a better overall user experience in design, readability, and e-reader compatibility.