The Surrealist Movement In England
Condition: SECONDHAND
This is a secondhand book. The jacket image is a photograph of the exact copy we have in stock. This image shows the condition of this book. Further condition remarks are below.
Condition remarks:
Condition: Good to fair. Jacket: good, worn/faded (refer to image). Page Condition: Good - possible tanning. Markings: possible previous owner inscription.
When the fever of Surrealism swept across Europe in the 1920s and 1930s, England proved an unlikely but fertile ground for its radical energies — and Paul C. Ray's The Surrealist Movement in England is the definitive account of that fascinating cultural collision. Ray chronicles the arrival and adaptation of French Surrealist ideas onto British soil, tracing the movement through its key figures, manifestos, exhibitions, and literary works, and illuminating how English writers and artists negotiated between continental avant-garde ambition and their own deep-rooted empirical traditions. Ray's scholarship is meticulous and authoritative, drawing on a wide range of primary sources to present a richly contextualised portrait of a movement that has long been overshadowed by its Parisian counterpart. The book argues convincingly that the English Surrealist episode was not a pale imitation but a genuinely distinctive cultural phenomenon, shaped by the peculiarities of British intellectual life. Written with clarity and critical precision, it remains an indispensable work for anyone seeking to understand the full geographic and cultural reach of one of the twentieth century's most transformative artistic revolutions — and to ask what it truly means for the irrational to take root in the land of reason.
Author: Paul C. Ray
Format: Hardback
Published: 1971, Cornell University Press
Genre: Literary theory
Condition remarks:
Condition: Good to fair. Jacket: good, worn/faded (refer to image). Page Condition: Good - possible tanning. Markings: possible previous owner inscription.
When the fever of Surrealism swept across Europe in the 1920s and 1930s, England proved an unlikely but fertile ground for its radical energies — and Paul C. Ray's The Surrealist Movement in England is the definitive account of that fascinating cultural collision. Ray chronicles the arrival and adaptation of French Surrealist ideas onto British soil, tracing the movement through its key figures, manifestos, exhibitions, and literary works, and illuminating how English writers and artists negotiated between continental avant-garde ambition and their own deep-rooted empirical traditions. Ray's scholarship is meticulous and authoritative, drawing on a wide range of primary sources to present a richly contextualised portrait of a movement that has long been overshadowed by its Parisian counterpart. The book argues convincingly that the English Surrealist episode was not a pale imitation but a genuinely distinctive cultural phenomenon, shaped by the peculiarities of British intellectual life. Written with clarity and critical precision, it remains an indispensable work for anyone seeking to understand the full geographic and cultural reach of one of the twentieth century's most transformative artistic revolutions — and to ask what it truly means for the irrational to take root in the land of reason.