Venus in Furs is possibly the best known novel by author Leopold von Sacher-Masoch. It draws themes and character inspiration heavily from Sacher-Masoch"s own life, and tells the story 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. Leopold Ritter von Sacher-Masoch (1836 - 1895), writer and journalist, was born in Lemberg, Austrian Empire (now Lviv, Ukraine). Today, he is best known for his name being the basis for the term masochism.