Dear reader,

Nerval by Nadar

Of all online recommendation engines, Amazon’s ‘customers who bought this also bought this’ has proven itself the most useful. Allow me to illustrate what I mean. A while back I added The Other Side (Dedalus European Classics) to my Alfred Kubin page which brought The Maimed (1923) by Hermann Ungar to my attention.

The Maimed connects to Hell by Henri Barbusse, Dark Spring (1970) by Hans Bellmer companion Unica Zürn, Scarecrow & Other Anomalies (1932) by Argentine poet Oliverio Girondo, The Obscene Bird of Night (1970) by Chilean writer José Donoso, Story of the Eye by Georges Bataille, Moravagine (1926) by Blaise Cendrars (who once called the French cinematic serial Fantômas “the modern Aeneid”), Aurelia by French writer of the fantastique Gérard De Nerval and decadent classic Maldoror by Comte de Lautréamont.

The above looks like a decent list of cult fiction.

When books by Dedalus are central, the connections turn out to be particularly undergroundish.

Do you want links to the names mentioned in this article? Click here if you do.