The character of Surrealism had been crystallizing over the previous five years when, in 1924, Andre Breton's Manifeste du Surrealisme defined the word. As conceived in those early days it was not so much a formal movement as a spiritual orientation, embracing ethics and politics as well as the arts. Recourse to dreams, to the unconscious, to chance factors, to automatism dictated the Surrealist mode. Patrick Waldberg prefaces this collection of key documents with an overview of Surrealism from its beginnings to the present time.

Author Biography

Patrick Waldberg (1913-1985) was a American surrealist poet and the first biographer of Max Ernst. Born in Santa Monica, he was educated in France.