Influenced by the Marquis de Sade's libertine fiction, The Pleasures of Cruelty is one of the darkest Victorian flagellant novels, reveling in cruelty, degradation, and the pleasures of the rod. An extract entitled 'The Sultan's Reverie' was published in William Lazenby's underground periodical The Pearl: A Journal of Faceti and Voluptuous Reading in December 1880 (Number 18). The first complete edition (three volumes in one) seems to have been published, possibly by Lazenby, in 1886. An edition was also published in 'Paris et London' in 1898, probably by Leonard Smithers and Duringe. The author is unknown but it has been conjectured that The Pleasures of Cruelty was written by General Studholme Hodgson or another member (or members) of the flagellant circle that flourished around Richard Monckton-Milnes, Lord Houghton.