The complex moral ambiguities of seduction and revenge make Dangerous Liasons one of the most scandalous and controversial novels in European literature. The subject of major film and stage adaptations, the novel's prime movers, the Vicomte de Valmont and the Marquise de Merteuil, form an unholy alliance and turn seduction into a game - a game which they must win.  Pierre Ambroise François Choderlos de Laclos   (1741 – 1803) was a French novelist, official and army general, best known for writing the epistolary novel Les liaisons dangereuses .