Together, these two novels comprise one of the most fascinating, obsessive, and erotic works of contemporary fiction. Both feature Octave, an elderly cleric, his striking, austere, yet sensual young wife, Roberte and their nephew, Antoine. In Roberte Ce Soir, the heroine engages in a ritual of hospitality, designed by Octave, whereby she offers herself to any guest who shows desire for her. This device becomes a circular game of realizing one's own identity through the reaction to a third person since, Klossowski asserts, the body is the envelope of the soul and its every expression is a permissible condition of spiritual progress. In The Revocation of the Edict of Nantes the scholastic aspect of Roberte Ce Soir gives way to a more complex story composed of situations that throw a strange light on human behaviour. Roberte is now a socially and politically well-situated member of the official council for censorship. Dissatisfied by marital legitimacy, she discovers the world of sexual perversion and imposes on herself the duty of exploring it — the ultimate goal of her scandalous yet farcical task is the achievement of complete freedom.

In this erotic, metaphysical, and theological novel, the spirits of medieval Templar monks gather on the anniversary of their Grand Master's torment and execution. Together they commit the sexual perfidies and blasphemous acts of which they had been forced to accuse one another before a tribunal.

These two essays explore sexual tropes, rituals, and mores of Roman antiquity from a thoroughly modern perspective. While attentive to the historical interpretations of the mythical meeting of Diana and Actaeon, and the sexual rituals of ancient Rome, Klossowski's studies bring to the reader the affinity the author has for his subject matter.

Preliminary Material -- Acknowledgements -- Questions of literature and time -- Marking time with Jacques Derrida -- Time returning: Maurice Blanchot -- The obstinate time of testimony: Louis-René des Forêts -- Still time: Samuel Beckett -- Making time for each other: Pierre Klossowski -- Fugal time: Roger Laporte -- Saving time: an invaluable offering -- Bibliography -- Index.

'I should have written you after my first reading of The Living Currency; it was already breath-taking and I should have responded. After reading it a few more times, I know it is the best book of our times.' Letter to Pierre Klossowski from Michel Foucault, winter 1970. Living Currency is the first English translation of Klossowski's La monnaie vivante. It offers an analysis of economic production as a mechanism of psychic production of desires and is a key work from this often overlooked but wonderfully creative French thinker.