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Masochist is a person who has the tendency to derive pleasure, especially sexual pleasure, from one’s own pain or humiliation. The term is derived from the name of Leopold Ritter von Sacher-Masoch (January 27, 1836 – March 9, 1895) an Austrian writer and journalist, who gained renown at his time for his stories of Galician life and romantic novels, and who described it very well in his novels.

During his life, Sacher-Masoch was well-known as a man of letters, who was seen by some as a potential successor to Goethe and was often compared to Turgenev. He was a utopian thinker who espoused socialist and humanist ideals in his fiction and non-fiction. Most of his works remain untranslated in English; the novel Venus in Furs is his only book commonly available in English.

Venus in Furs is probably his best known work, a romantic tale which has at its heart a sado/masochistic relationship. This novel was part of an epic series he envisioned called The Heritage of Cain, which was to have had six parts, each made up of several stories:

The six parts were to be LOVE (Prologue: The Wanderer; 1.Don Juan of Kolomea; 2.The Man Who Re-Enlisted; 3.Moonlight; 4.Venus in Furs; 5.Plato’s Love; 6.Marcella), PROPERTY (1.People’s Court; 2.Haidamaka; 3.Hasara Raba; 4.A Testament; 5.Basil Hymen; 6.The Paradise on the Dniester), STATE (1.Ilau), WAR, WORK (The Old Castellan), DEATH (1.Frau von Soldan; 2.The Jewish Raphael; 3.The Godmother; Epilogue: The Night Before Christmas [not written]).

Venus in Furs was 4th part of Love and was first published in 1869. The novel drew heavily on Sacher-Masoch’s own life. The real-life model for the book’s main female character (Wanda) was a woman named Fanny Pistor. This lady first contacted Sacher-Masoch, then emerging as a new literary talent, for suggestions on her own chances for publication but an intense relationship quickly followed.

On December 8, 1869 Leopold and Fanny signed a contract making Leopold von Sacher-Masoch the slave of Fanny Pistor for a period of six months, with the stipulation, doubtlessly at Sacher-Masoch’s suggestion, that the Baroness wear furs as often as possible, especially when she was in a cruel mood.

Sacher-Masoch was given the alias of Severin, and disguised as the servant of Fanny, they traveled by train to Italy, living their mistress/slave roles. As with the character in his novel, Sacher-Masoch traveled in the third class compartment while his mistress had a seat in first class, arriving in Venice (Florence, in the novel), where they were not known and would not arouse suspicion. Venus in Furs takes threads from Sacher-Masoch‘s own life and weaves them into a dark sexual myth. He was a romantic, a poet of the perverse, and not really understood either in his own time or since.