When sofas (or sophas as it was sometimes spelled) were first introduced to Europe from Turkey, they were considered rather risque! Up until that time, you couldn’t share a comfortable chair with anyone: multi-person seating was limited to benches. As a result, French novelist Claude Prosper Jolyot de Crébillon wrote a rather naughty book in 1742 called Le Sopha, conte moral or The Sofa: A Moral Tale. The satirical tale concerns a young courtier, Amanzéï, whose soul in a previous life was condemned by Brahma to inhabit a series of sofas, and not to be reincarnated in a human body until two virgin lovers had consummated their passion upon him.





















