The Songs of Maldoror

A new translation finally appears of one of the seminal books in the history of literature. Adored by the Surrealists, Les Chants de Maldoror was hailed by them as a dark progenitor of their movement, and its author, Le Comte de Lautreamont (Isidore Ducasse) elevated to the status of literary idol. It was in these pages that Andre Breton discovered the phrase which would come to represent the Surrealist doctrine of "objective chance": "as beautiful as the random encounter between an umbrella and a sewing-machine upon a dissecting-table". Artists inspired by Lautreamont include Man Ray, Jacques Houplain, Jindrich Styrsky, Rene Magritte, Max Ernst, Victor Brauner, Óscar Dominguez, Andre Masson, Joan Miró, Roberto Matta, Yves Tanguy and, especially, Salvador Dali, whose nightmare painting Autumn Cannibalism adorns this new, definitive edition of a transcendent masterpiece. Bonus features of this special ebook edition include a foreword on Lautreamont and Sade by Paul Éluard; a new psycho-biography of Lautreamont; and a two-part analysis of Maldoror as surrealistic nightmare.