The author wrote this novel as a series of letters to her own lover, Jean Paulhan. Paulhan admired the Marquis de Sade's writings and claimed that no woman could write this way, prompting Desclos to write her own erotic fantasies as a challenge.
The novel has been very influential in erotic literature. As one of the first modern novels to describe women's fantasies in a woman's voice, many young women have been prompted to write their own erotic stories or memoirs after reading it. For many submissive women, reading the Story of O is a rite of passage and discovery.