Laclos, Pierre-Ambroise-François Choderlos de

French author. An army officer, he wrote a single novel in letter form, Les Liaisons dangereuses/Dangerous Liaisons (1782), an analysis of moral corruption. A cynical and unscrupulous libertine, the Vicomte de Valmont, encouraged by the Marquise de Merteuil, seduces and destroys two innocent women. A moral twist is given at the end of the book when Valmont is killed in a duel and the Marquise de Merteuil is hideously disfigured by smallpox.

The work was adapted as a play in 1985 by Christopher Hampton (1946– ) and as a film in 1988, directed by Stephen Frears (1941– ).