Robert Desnos

"In those days, my door was open to mystery." So speaks the hero of Desnos' novel: Sanglot the Corsair. Mystery, the marvellous, a city transmuted by love, Sanglot's pursuit of the siren Louise Lame, such are the essential ingredients of this the last masterpiece of early Surrealism to remain untranslated into English. It was originally published in 1924 to immediate and lasting acclaim - except from the public authorities who immediately censored whole sections (here restored). Impossible to describe a novel of such virtuosity and bravura, and one which consistently refuses to behave as one expects, characters appear and vanish according to whim or desire, they walk underwater, nonchalantly accept astounding coincidences. It's a hymn to the erotic, an adventure story darkly illumined by the shades of Sade, Lautreamont and Jack the Ripper, a dream both violent and tender, an obsession, in fact the perfect embodiment of the Surrealist spirit: at once joyful, despairing, and effortlessly scandalous.

261 pages : 19 cm

The Automatic Muse collects together four remarkable novels from the early days of Surrealism - the 1920's, when the group was experimenting with "automatic writing" and other methods of "forcing inspiration.". Despite, or because of, the methods used in their composition these works are remarkable for the differences between them. They are variously mysterious, comic, astonishing, wildly extravagant. Yet they all share a feeling for the marvellous, and a literary style totally unrestrained by the conventions of "literature." Their potent vitality is an ample demonstration of the Surrealist programme and its belief in "the total liberation of man."