This book reflects collections at the galleries of Birmingham, Cardiff,Colchester, Leeds, Middlesborough, Newcastle, Oxford and the National Gallery of Scotland in Edinburgh. Poets in this collection include David Gascoyne, Humphrey Jennings, George Melly and Roland Penrose. Remy's anthology represents one coherent and deeply committed aspect of British poetry between 1930 and 1980. It was the only surrealist movement in Europe to be active, and freely so, during World War II. Here the original texts, most of them unfindable or previously unpublished, emerge from what proved a temporary oblivion. The work is fascinating, stimulating and various. British surrealist writing is at last given a chance to voice its subversion.This illustrated edition includes an illuminating introduction (‘The snark was a boujum, you see’), Manifestoes and Declarations of Surrealism in England, a detailed chronology and a dictionary of Surrealism in Britain. It also features illustrations by Desmond Morris and poems by painters Emmy Bridgwater, Ithell Colquhoun and Conroy Maddox.
