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historical romance
Series · erotic romance
The Sleeping Beauty Quartet
The Sleeping Beauty Quartet series by Anne Rice has 4 known books (4 published) and is best read in publication order, starting with The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty (1983). The latest book with a fully recorded publication date is Beauty's Kingdom.
- Books
- 4 known books (4 novels)
- Published
- 4
- First published
- 1983
- Status
- completed
- Shelved under
- Romance
- Last checked
Start here: The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty (1983) — then read straight through in publication order.
Reading order
The date order of published books and any announced future entries — the default way to read the series.
- Book 1:
The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty
The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty is the shortest book in The Sleeping Beauty Quartet at 280 pages, published in 1983 under the pseudonym A. N. Roquelaure, when explicit erotica by a literary novelist under her own name would have been commercially unthinkable. It retells the fairy tale as an explicit BDSM erotic fantasy, opening with the prince claiming the princess as a captive rather than waking her with a kiss.
Alternative text for cover: Cover of The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty - Book 2:
Beauty's Punishment
Released in 1984, Beauty's Punishment sits between The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty and Beauty's Release in the Sleeping Beauty Quartet reading order. It continues Beauty's escalating education in desire, humiliation and power, part of the continuous trilogy Anne Rice wrote under the pseudonym A. N. Roquelaure across 1983-1985.
Alternative text for cover: Cover of Beauty's Punishment - Book 3:
Beauty's Release
The third entry in the Sleeping Beauty Quartet series, Beauty's Release was published in 1985 and runs 320 pages, closing out the original trilogy Anne Rice wrote as A. N. Roquelaure. It completes Beauty's arc from captive to a figure who commands the very rituals that once controlled her, three decades before Rice returned to the world in Beauty's Kingdom.
Alternative text for cover: Cover of Beauty's Release - Book 4:
Beauty's Kingdom
At 336 pages, Beauty's Kingdom is the longest entry in The Sleeping Beauty Quartet, appearing in 2015 -- three decades after Beauty's Release, and published under Anne Rice's own name from the outset. It arrived after Fifty Shades of Grey, a book Rice herself has said drew on her Sleeping Beauty novels, transformed the erotica market that once required the Roquelaure pseudonym.
Alternative text for cover: Cover of Beauty's Kingdom
About The Sleeping Beauty Quartet
Anne Rice's Sleeping Beauty books retell the fairy tale as an explicit BDSM erotic fantasy: a prince wakes the sleeping princess not with a kiss but by claiming her as a captive, and carries her off to a kingdom where the nobility openly practice ritualized submission and discipline. Written in ornate, deliberately old-fashioned prose that plays the fairy-tale register straight even as the content is anything but childlike, the first three volumes follow Beauty from her initial captivity through an escalating education in desire, humiliation, and eventually power, as she moves from prisoner to a figure who commands the very rituals that once controlled her. Rice published the original trilogy in the early 1980s under the pseudonym A. N. Roquelaure, at a time when explicit erotica by a literary novelist under her own name would have been commercially unthinkable; the pen name was an open secret for years before Rice formally reclaimed the books.
Three decades later, with erotica publishing transformed by the runaway success of Fifty Shades of Grey (a book Rice herself has said drew on her Sleeping Beauty novels), Rice returned to the world she'd built and wrote a fourth volume, Beauty's Kingdom, published in 2015 under her own name from the outset. All four books were subsequently repackaged and reissued as Anne Rice titles, folding the Roquelaure pseudonym into her acknowledged body of work alongside the two other erotic novels she wrote as Anne Rampling.
Frequently asked questions
How many books are in Anne Rice's Sleeping Beauty series?
Four: The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty (1983), Beauty's Punishment (1984), Beauty's Release (1985), and Beauty's Kingdom (2015), together known as the Sleeping Beauty Quartet.
Why were the first three Sleeping Beauty books published as A. N. Roquelaure?
Anne Rice wrote the original trilogy under the pen name A. N. Roquelaure in the early 1980s, when publishing explicit BDSM erotica under her own literary name would have been commercially difficult. The pseudonym was widely known to be Rice's for years before the books were formally reissued under her real name.
Is Beauty's Kingdom part of the same story as the original trilogy?
Yes. Published in 2015, three decades after Beauty's Release, it directly continues the same characters and world and is written under Rice's own name from its first edition.
Are these books connected to Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles?
No. The Sleeping Beauty Quartet is a separate, self-contained erotic fantasy world with no characters or continuity shared with the Vampire Chronicles, Mayfair Witches, or Ramses the Damned.
Did Anne Rice write other erotica besides the Sleeping Beauty books?
Yes -- two standalone erotic novels, Exit to Eden (1985) and Belinda (1986), originally published under the pen name Anne Rampling and later reissued under Rice's own name. They're unconnected to the Sleeping Beauty world and are listed on this site's Anne Rice standalone-author page.
If you like The Sleeping Beauty Quartet
Reading order last verified .