Todd Bash is among the most adventurous and uncompromising playwrights in the world today. Often shattering the conventions of traditional theatre, and overflowing with dream-like imagery, his style recalls the experiments of the Paris Surrealists during the 1920s, as well as writers such as Alfred Jarry, Bertolt Brecht and Stanislaw Ignacy Witkiewicz. SANCTUS FUMIGACI - Collected Works Volume 2 brings together eight of Bash's most challenging plays, spanning the years 1989 through 2005. Provocative, haunting and deeply personal, they are necessary reading for anyone with a serious interest in contemporary theatre, the avant-garde and surrealism. QUOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: "As a writer, I attempt to delve beyond external reality, and touch something deep within myself. I want to express a human being's inner reality in a completely honest and uninhibited manor, with all of its brutality, and all of its innocence; all of its darkness, and all of its beauty. To create an analogy, a couple of years ago I spent some time in the Amazon jungle. I found the jungle, and Nature itself, completely free. At times its chaos was overwhelming, filled with a violent ferocity. But it was also pure, almost innocent, and incredibly moving. This is how I view the imagination, as well, and what I strive to capture with my writing and creative projects."

Todd Bash is among the more adventurous and uncompromising playwrights in the world today. Often shattering the conventions of traditional theatre, and overflowing with dream-like imagery, his style recalls the experiments of the Paris Surrealists during the 1920s, as well as writers such as Alfred Jarry, Bertolt Brecht and Stanislaw Ignacy Witkiewicz. SANCTUS FUMIGACI - Collected Works Volume 2 brings together eight of Bash's most challenging plays, spanning the years 1989 through 2005. Provocative, haunting and deeply personal, they are necessary reading for anyone with a serious interest in contemporary theatre, the avant-garde and surrealism. QUOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: "As a writer, I attempt to delve beyond external reality, and touch something deep within myself. I want to express a human being's inner reality in a completely honest and uninhibited manor, with all of its brutality, and all of its innocence; all of its darkness, and all of its beauty. To create an analogy, a couple of years ago I spent some time in the Amazon jungle. I found the jungle, and Nature itself, completely free. At times its chaos was overwhelming, filled with a violent ferocity. But it was also pure, almost innocent, and incredibly moving. This is how I view the imagination, as well, and what I strive to capture with my writing and creative projects."

As the title testifies, students were sworn to secrecy before being given access to this magic text, and only a few manuscripts have survived. Bits of its teachings, such as the use of the magic whistle for summoning spirits, are alluded to in other texts. Another key element of its ritual, the elaborate “Seal of God,” has been found in texts and amulets throughout Europe. Interest in The Sworn Book of Honorius has grown in recent years, yet no modern translations have been attempted—until now. Purporting to preserve the magic of Solomon in the face of intense persecution by religious authorities, this text includes one of the oldest and most detailed magic rituals. It contains a complete system of magic including how to attain the divine vision, communicate with holy angels, and control aerial, earthly, and infernal spirits for practical gain. Largely ignored by historians until recently, this text is an important witness to the transmission of Kabbalah and Jewish mysticism to European Hermeticists.

This is the first time Aragon's seminal French surrealist text has been published in English as a single volume and the translation is accompanied by a CD of eight spoken extracts set to music by Tymon Dogg and Alex Thomas. Aragon's extraordinary prose-poem-essay A Wave of Dreams (Une vague de reves), is a compelling, lyrical, first-hand account of the early days of surrealist experimentation in Paris. Writing in 1924, Aragon vividly describes, and philosophically evaluates, the inner adventures, the hallucinations and encounters with the 'Marvellous' which took the young surrealists to the brink of insanity as a revolutionary new era in Art History was born."

A collection of manifestos originally published in 1938, in which the French artist and philosopher attacks conventional assumptions about the drama, and calls for the influx of irrational material - based on dreams, religion, and emotion - in order to make the theater vital for modern audiences.

Surrealist Poetry presents new English translations of nearly 150 poems alongside their original French and Spanish versions. Founded by André Breton in 1924, Surrealism sought to examine the unconscious realm by means of the written or spoken word. Seeking to expand the ability of language to evoke irrational states and improbable events, it consistently strove to transcend the linguistic status quo. By stretching language to its limits and beyond, the Surrealists transformed it into an instrument for exploring the human psyche. The twenty-three poets in this collection come not only from France, where Surrealism was invented, but also from Spain, Belgium, Martinique, Mauritius, Catalonia, Mexico, Chile, and Peru. Three of them were awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature (Vicente Aleixandre, Pablo Neruda, and Octavio Paz). Equipped with a critical introduction and a brief bibliography, this anthology will appeal to anyone interested in modern literature.

This book collects together the two most vital "automatic" texts Surrealism. Breton's prefatory essay The Automatic Message relates this technique to the underlying concepts and aesthetic of the Surrealist movement. The Magnetic Fields (1919) was the first work of literary Surrealism and is thus one of the foundations of modern European thought and writing. This authorised translation is by the poet David Gascoyne, himself a member of the group and a friend of both authors. The Immaculate Conception (1930) traces the interior and exterior life of man from Conception and Intra-Uterine Life to Death and The Original Judgement. The central section is a celebrated series of "simulations" of various types of mental instability.

Surrealist Poets is a single-volume reference that contains selected essays from Critical Survey of Poetry, Fourth Edition. The essays in Surrealist Poets discuss such influential poets as Louis Aragon, Robert Bly, Jean Cocteau, Pablo Neruda, and Guillaume Apollinaire.

"This lavishly illustrated book assembles a wide range of Magritte's work, providing a thorough overview that focuses on all aspects of his oeuvre: paintings, drawings, collages, graphic design, prints and sculptures."--Inside jacket.