No Tomorrow

Vivant Denon's No Tomorrow is one of the masterpieces of eighteenth-century French libertine literature, a book to set beside Laclos's Les Liaisons dangereuses, except that where Laclos's icy novel is one of hellish depravity, Denon's ravishing novella is a paradisal diversion. This tale of seduction is itself a seduction, with a plot that could be said to slowly unveil itself before arriving at last at an unexpected consummation. Summoned by Madame de Tuu to her country house, the young hero of the novella is taken on a tour of the grounds, only the beginning of a night that not only will be full of unanticipated delights but will give rise to unforeseen, perhaps unanswerable, questions. Lydia Davis's definitive translation of Denon's slim masterpiece is accompanied by the French text. Peter Brooks, Professor of Comparative Literature at Yale University, provides an introduction that explores the mysteries of No Tomorrow's original publication and the subtleties of Denon's ethics of love.

Vivant Denon (1747—1825) was a French artist, writer, diplomat, author, and archaeologist. He was appointed the first director of the Louvre Museum by Napoleon.

Peter Brooks is the author of several books, including Henry James Goes to Paris, Realist Vision, Troubling Confessions, Psychoanalysis and Storytelling, Body Work, Reading for the Plot, The Melodramatic Imagination, and The Novel of Worldliness. He is also the author of one novel, World Elsewhere.

Lydia Davis is an American author and translator of French. She is a Professor of Creative Writing at the University at Albany, SUNY.