Novella

Venus in Furs (German: Venus im Pelz) is a novella by Austrian author Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, the best known of his works. The novel was part of an epic series that Sacher-Masoch envisioned called Legacy of Cain. Venus in Furs was part of Love, the first volume of the series. It was published in 1870.

Novel

The Titian painting Venus with
a Mirror, from which Severin
gets the idea of Venus in furs.

The novel draws themes and character inspiration heavily from Sacher-Masoch’s own life. Wanda von Dunajew (the novel's central female character) was modelled after Fanny Pistor, who was an emerging literary writer. The two met when Pistor contacted Sacher-Masoch, under the fictitious title of a noble Baroness Bogdanoff, for suggestions on improvement of her works, to make them suitable for publication.

Plot summary

The framing story concerns a man who dreams of speaking to Venus about love while she wears furs. The unnamed narrator tells his dreams to a friend, Severin, who tells him how to break him of his fascination with cruel women by reading a manuscript, Memoirs of a Suprasensual Man.

This manuscript tells of a man, Severin von Kusiemski, so infatuated with a woman, Wanda von Dunajew, that he requests to be treated as her slave, and encourages her to treat him in progressively more degrading ways. At first Wanda does not understand or relate to the request, but after humouring Severin a bit she finds the advantages of the method to be interesting and enthusiastically embraces the idea; though at the same time, she disdains Severin for allowing her to do so.

Severin describes his feelings during these experiences as suprasensuality. Severin and Wanda travel to Florence. Along the way, Severin takes the generic Russian servant's name of "Gregor" and the role of Wanda's servant. In Florence, Wanda treats him brutally as a servant, and recruits a trio of African women to dominate him.

The relationship arrives at a crisis point when Wanda herself meets a man to whom she would like to submit, a Byronic hero known as Alexis Papadopolis. At the end of the book, Severin, humiliated by Wanda's new lover, loses the desire to submit. He says of Wanda:

"That woman, as nature has created her, and man at present is educating her, is man's enemy. She can only be his slave or his despot, but never his companion. This she can become only when she has the same rights as he and is his equal in education and work."

In popular culture

• The novel has been adapted for film five times: in 1967, twice in 1969, in 1985 (Verfuehrung: Die Grausame Frau, a lesbian-feminist interpretation directed by Monika Treut), and in 1994. The 1994 film was directed by Maartje Seyferth and Victor E. Nieuwenhuijs, and received an award at the 1994 international film festival of Saint Petersburg, Russia.
• The lyrics of The Velvet Underground song "Venus in Furs" from their 1967 debut album refer to this book.
• In Luis Buñuel's 1967 film Belle de Jour, which touches on sado-masochistic themes, the heroine, played by Catherine Deneuve, is called Severine as a nod to Sacher-Masoch.
• In the 1998 Todd Haynes film Velvet Goldmine, main character Brian Slade's backing band is called "Venus in Furs". An actual band titled The Venus in Furs was assembled to record songs for the film's soundtrack. This band consisted of Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood of Radiohead, Andy Mackay of Roxy Music, Bernard Butler of Suede, Clune, and Paul Kimble.
• The American rock band Marilyn Manson's song, "Doll-Dagga Buzz-Buzz Ziggety-Zag" (on their The Golden Age of Grotesque album) makes reference to the book with the line "we've got our Venus not in Furs but in uniform" (Note: this could also just be a reference to the song by the Velvet Underground, by whom Manson was influenced)
• Cradle of Filth included a track called "Venus In Fear" on their 1998 album Cruelty and the Beast
• The 2006 John Cameron Mitchell film Shortbus features a character named Severin, a dominatrix.
• The band Bauhaus published an off-album track called "Lagartija Nick" (Little Lizard Nick). The song, with repetitions of "crack the whip" contains in the first verse, "He feels like Sacher-Masoch and the fire below is licking at his lips. ...cracks the whip." In this context of masochism, the rest of the lyrics can be related to a character in Severin's position.
• The New Wave band Venus in Furs from the 1980s.
• Steven Severin of the band Siouxsie & The Banshees (born Steven John Bailey), took his stage name from the character, Severin, in the book.
• The book inspired Venus in Fur, a 2010 play set in the modern day by David Ives, which had its premier at the Classic Stage Company Off Broadway in New York City starring Nina Arianda and Wes Bentley.
• A surf rock disco band from Madison, Wisconsin is called Venus in Furs.
• The UK band Electric Wizard has a song called Venus in Furs on their 2010 album, Black Masses.