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

The Celestial Bandit – a tribute to Lautreamont and Maldoror

Isidore Ducasse (1846-1870), better known by his pen name Comte de Lautréamont, is the most influential writer most people have never heard of. Maldoror, the first of his two works, has been described as the most evil book ever written. It has also been described as the funniest. Either way, it provides some of the most gorgeous, twisty, weird sentences in any language.

An inspiration to the Surrealists, post-colonial Caribbean writers, and the Situationists to name a few, Lautréamont still garners a following today. In The Celestial Bandit, editor Jordan A. Rothacker brings together twenty-four contemporary artists from music, visual arts, and the writing world to pay tribute to this unique and exciting influence. Poetry, essays, short stories, experimental texts, and a dictionary of disruptive neologisms, this anthology has it all. 

Contributing authors and artists include: Mark Amerika, Louis Armand, R J Dent, Seb Doubinsky, Steve Finbow, Chris Kelso, Callum Leckie, Golnoosh Nour, Jeremy Reed and Audrey Szasz, amongst others.

All profits from the sales of The Celestial Bandit will be donated to Surfrider Foundation for their efforts to protect our oceans that Ducasse loved so much.

Book details and purchase link here: http://www.rjdent.com/the-celestial-bandit-a-tribute-to-isidore-ducasse-the-comte-de-lautreamont-edited-by-jordan-a-rothacker/

Purchase link here: http://www.kernpunktpress.com/store/p29/celestialbandit.html

The Celestial Bandit, edited by Jordan A. Rothaker

The Celestial Bandit is a 175th Anniversary Tribute to Isidore Ducasse, the Comte de Lautréamont, edited by Jordan A. Rothacker.

Isidore Ducasse (1846-1870), better known by his pen name Le Comte de Lautréamont, is the most influential writer most people have never heard of. Maldoror, the first of his two works, has been described as the most evil book ever written. It has also been described as the funniest book ever written. Either way, it provides some of the most gorgeous, twisted, weird sentences in any language.

An inspiration to the Surrealists, the Situationists, and to post-colonial Caribbean writers, to name a few, Lautréamont still garners a following today. In The Celestial Bandit, editor Jordan A. Rothacker brings together twenty-four contemporary artists from music, visual arts, and the writing world to pay tribute to this unique and exciting influence. Poetry, essays, short stories, experimental texts, and a dictionary of disruptive neologisms, this anthology has it all. 

All profits from the sales of The Celestial Bandit will be donated to Surfrider Foundation for their efforts to protect our oceans that Ducasse loved so much.

The Celestial Bandit includes work by a diverse range of authors and artists including: Mark Amerika, Louis Armand, Ben Arzate, duncan b. barlow, Tosh Berman, R J Dent, Douglas Doornbos, Seb Doubinsky, Steve Finbow, Stewart Home, Chris Kelso, Faisal Khan, Dylan Krieger, Callum Leckie, Chris Lloyd, Alexis Lykiard, Jennifer Macbain-Stephens, Christopher Nelms, Golnoosh Nour, David Leo Rice, Jeremy Reed, John Reed, James Reich, & Audrey Szasz.

The Celestial Bandit is available to buy from KERNPUNKT Press at: http://www.kernpunktpress.com/store/p29/celestialbandit.html

The Blood Delirium: The Vampire in 19th Century European Literature

 

‘R J Dent’s translations are fresh with an exciting raw sexual edge…’ (Candice Black)

 

The Blood Delirium is a definitive collection of 19th century European literature in which the vampire or vampirism – both embodied and atmospheric – is featured or evoked. Twenty-three seminal works by classic European authors, covering the whole of that delirious period from Gothic and Romantic, through Symbolism and Decadence to proto-Surrealism and beyond, in a single volume charged with sex, blood and horror.

 

The Blood Delirium contains a detailed introduction (by editor Candice Black) which not only examines these texts and their meaning, but which also charts the literary and cultural climate in which the new cult of the vampire was allowed to flourish.

 

The Blood Delirium includes texts by Bram Stoker, J. Sheridan Le Fanu, Oscar Wilde, J.M. Rymer, Charles Baudelaire, Le Comte de Lautréamont, Paul Féval, Maurice Rollinat, Guy de Maupassant, Count Stenbock, Jean Lorrain, Théophile Gautier, Charles Nodier, John Polidori, J.K. Huysmans, Charlotte Brontë, Ivan Turgenev, Jan Neruda, Augustus Hare, Cyprien Berard and Léon Bloy.

 

Several of the texts in The Blood Delirium are translated by R J Dent into English for the very first time, including those by Cyprien Bérard, Paul Féval, and Maurice Rollinat.

 

 

The Blood Delirium is the definitive collection for literate vampire-lovers.

 

The Blood Delirium is available from:

 

http://www.amazon.com/The-Blood-Delirium-European-Literature/dp/0983884285

 

or from:

 

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Blood-Delirium-The-Candice-Black/dp/0983884285

 

 

www.rjdent.com