This wide spread mood in literature had a major effect on 19th-century poets and painters, and the affinities between them and their 20th-centurycounterparts makes this account of the Romantic-Decadents an indispensible guide to the study of modern literature.

    Many favorites, many are new. Introduction by Alfred Werner. Includes Self-Portrait at the Age of Thirteen, Female Nude (with Headcloth and Slippers), Orpheus Slain by Bacchantes, with Boy Running Away. "The fascination of the drawings is inexhaustible; the skill incredible; the upshot — delight." — Boston Globe.

    Van Loon gives us the thrilling story of the great artist whose famous signature R.V.R. on any picture makes it priceless. He tells about the son of a Dutch miller who rose to fame, who tasted the fruits of success and prosperity and sank to the trials of bankruptcy and utter want. A lavish spender, a generous giver, a constant friend to all in need, he found himself alone when he needed friends most. Six drunken grave diggers lowered his cheap coffin into the earth. The book is full of high spirit, eager thinking, laughter, scorn, reason, kindness, observation, shrewdness, courage, love of adventure, confidence in processes of the mind, and interest in the methods of the heart.

    My soul is fragmentary.--from DisavowalsClaude Cahun (1894-1954), born Lucy Schwob, was a poet, performer, resistance fighter, prisoner, Surrealist, "constructor and explorer of objects," photographer, and "queer freak" who invented her life by flaunting the interchangability of roles and playing with the ambivalence of identity. Whether feigning vulnerability on the arm of her lover and stepsister Suzanne Malherbe aka Marcel Moore ("the other me"), making theatrical public appearances in disguise (sailor, gymnast, gypsy), or making herself up (vampire, Buddha, mannequin, angel) for self-portraits and installations, she rendered opposites inoperative and exposed the thinness of gender and power constructs by reducing them to mere surface costumes. In May 1930 Editions Carrefour of Paris published 500 copies of a book called Aveux non avenues, in which Cahun explored these same dialectics in book form. It is the nearest thing to a memoir Cahun wrote, but in fact the book is an anti-memoir, a critique of autobiography, where she uses subversive photomontages and statements to present herself as a force of genius possessed of the need to resist identification and to maintain within herself "the mania of the exception." Disavowals is the first appearance of that work, widely considered to be her most important text, in English. Reproductions of the original photomontages introduce the various sections, which in turn explore Cahun's distinctive ideas and obsessions--self-interrogation, narcissism, metamorphosis, love, gender-switching, humor, fear. An extensive introduction by Tate curator Jennifer Mundy sets the text in the context of Cahun's life and art. Also included is a translation of the original preface by Cahun's friend Pierre Mac Orlan, a comment by her biographer, Francois Leperlier, a note on the translation by Susan de Muth, and a postscript by Agnes Lhermitte."

    We have to keep reminding ourselves that they were not drawn in New York, London, and Paris of the twenty-first century but in the sensation-hungry, inflation-fed milieu of the Weimar Republic."On an Expense Account," for example, shows a well-fed businessman and his wife. We see only his back and neck, note her tastelessly modish skirts, and we know the whole story. "Total Devotion from 5:00 to 7:00" is a cocktail-bar scene, and in the dancing of the slick-haired man and the posture of his partner there is something depraved because it is only sensual. "Lunch" depicts a matron with unmistakably porcine features holding knife and fork affectedly as she swills. Her dining partner needs no animalization; the blasé bag below his eye, the expression, and the fold below his chin are enough.Can prostitutes, contrary to sentimental folklore, appear smug, bloated with satisfaction, and wallowing in cheap gratification? See "Transit Trade" to realize the effects of mindless materialism. Schiller wrote, "Swim if you can and if you are too weak, sink." Grosz takes this as his text for a compelling contrast between rich and poor in just two figures that completely refute the Übermensch doctrine. Hemingway in Nada did not depict more tellingly the utter despair of empty lives in the hour when the café closes than does Grosz in "They Don't Sing Any More." Love Above All? We are only partway through this portfolio when we realize suddenly how bitterly sarcastic is the title.But the mordant eye, angry wit, and social consciences of Grosz were shared by many of his period. What lifts his art above the transient event is his supremely eloquent use of pen and brush. No one has more expressively, piercingly, and economically, drawn the scenes of his special civilization—so strangely like ours — than did George Grosz.

    This culinary memoir features original recipes and exuberant drawings by Toulouse-Lautrec, plus a Preface by Alexandra Leaf describing the French culinary scene of the time. 15 four- and 17 two-color illustrations.