The Automatic Muse: Surrealist Novels

The Automatic Muse: Surrealist Novels (Atlas Anti-Classics 1), featuring novellas by Robert Desnos, Georges Limbour, Michel Leiris, and Benjamin Peret / ISBN 9780947757793 / 167-page paperback from Atlas Press (UK, 1994) / Out-of-print, used book in very good condition (no marks inside, light shelfwear, age toning to page, overall tight and clean)

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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 marvelous, and a literary style totally unrestrained by the conventions of "literature." Their potent vitality is an ample demonstration of the Surrealist program and its belief in "the total liberation of man."