It's an erotic classic yet it was written anonymously by a shy, intellectual French woman in honour of her secret lover.
Over fifty years ago, an extraordinary pornographic novel appeared in Paris. Published simultaneously in French and English, Story of O portrayed explicit scenes of bondage and violent penetration in spare, elegant prose, the purity of the writing making the novel seem reticent even as it dealt with demonic desire, with whips, masks and chains.
Pauline Reage, the author, was a pseudonym, and many people thought that the book could only have been written by a man. The writer's true identity was not revealed until 20 years ago, when, in an interview with John de St Jorre, a British journalist and some-time foreign correspondent of The Observer, an impeccably dressed 86-year-old intellectual called Dominique Aury acknowledged that the fantasies of castles, masks and debauchery were hers.
Aury was an eminent figure in literary France, and had been when she wrote the book at the age of 47. A translator, editor and judge of literary prizes, for a quarter of a decade, Aury was the only woman to sit on the reading committee of publishers Gallimard (a body that also included Albert Camus) and was a holder of the Légion d'Honneur. She could scarcely have been more highbrow, nor, according to de St Jorre, more quietly and soberly dressed, more 'nun-like'.
The French state has not always had an easy relationship with Story of O, but, this year, the government has announced it is to be included on a list of national triumphs to be celebrated in 2004. Dominique Aury died, aged 90, in 1998, but many people who knew her well are still alive and a number feature in a fascinating and, as yet, unseen documentary about the book and the secrecy that for so long surrounded it, made by an American film-maker, Pola Rapaport.
It turns out that Story of O has had considerable influence. In the 1950s, such a book could arguably only have been written in France. It would certainly never have been published in England or the United States, both of which were in the grip of censorship laws.