The Songs of Maldoror

by Le Comte de Lautréamont

Translated into modern English by R J Dent

Illustrated by Karolina Urbaniak

Published by Infinity Land Press 

Title: The Songs of Maldoror

Author: Le Comte de Lautréamont

Translator: R J Dent

Illustrator: Karolina Urbaniak

Foreword: Audrey Szasz

Afterword: Jeremy Reed

Publisher: Infinity Land Press

ISBN: 978-1-8382803-7-6

Format: Hardback

Pages: 288

Language: English

Dimensions: 210mm (8¼“) x 148mm (5¾”)

Weight: 672 grams (1.48 lbs)

‘A new, definitive edition of Lautréamont’s influential masterpiece. Vividly translated by R J Dent.’

Le Comte de Lautréamont was the nom de plume of Isidore Ducasse (1846–70), a Uruguayan-born French writer and poet whose only surviving major work of fiction, The Songs of Maldoror (Les Chants de Maldoror), was discovered by the Surrealists, who hailed the work as a dark progenitor of their movement. It was in The Songs of Maldoror that André Breton discovered the phrase that 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 Lautréamont include Man Ray, René Magritte, Max Ernst, André Masson, Joan Miró, Yves Tanguy and Salvador Dalí. In this edition, award-winning photographer and design artist, Karolina Urbaniak, has created 37 full colour illustrations that complement the dark and disturbing elements of The Songs of Maldoror in all its savage beauty.

Vividly translated by R J Dent – the first new translation for over forty years – The Songs of Maldoror also includes a foreword by avant garde writer, Audrey Szasz and an afterword by poet Jeremy Reed. 

The Songs of Maldoror is a poetic novel (or a long prose poem) consisting of six cantos. It was written between 1868 and 1869 by Le Comte de Lautréamont, the pseudonym of Isidore Ducasse. During the early 1900s, many of the surrealists (Salvador Dalí, André Breton, Antonin Artaud, Marcel Duchamp, Man Ray and Max Ernst) cited the novel as a major inspiration to their own works. The Songs of Maldoror – and the book’s protagonist Maldoror – have continued to fascinate readers since its publication.

The Songs of Maldoror is available from Infinity Land Press here: https://www.infinitylandpress.com/the-songs-of-maldoror

or from R J Dent here: http://www.rjdent.com/the-songs-of-maldoror-2/

John Wisniewski’s interview with R J Dent (in which the Marquis de Sade, Alfred Jarry and The Songs of Maldoror are discussed) can be read here: 

https://www.greatweatherformedia.com/greatweatherformediacom/2022/9/27/an-interview-with-rj-dent

The Songs of Maldoror and other books by R J Dent can be found at: www.rjdent.com