DOUBLE YOUR TREASURE

We invite you to double your treasure with this pair of backlist beauties.

CHARLES CROS: COLLECTED MONOLOGUES

Charles Cros was one of the most brilliant minds of his generation, equally adept at poetry, fiction, and scientific inquiry. He wrote smutty verses with Verlaine, synthesized gems with Alphonse Allais, contributed wild prose fantasies to Le Chat Noir, and experimented with color photography and sound recording, only to die young, poor, and alcoholic. Not incidentally, he also invented the comic monologue for the actor Coquelin Cadet. This edition collects all of Cros’s monologues—masterfully translated & introduced by Doug Skinner—and includes performance notes, plus two biographical essays by his friend and colleague Alphonse Allais. 

UPSIDE-DOWN STORIES

Charles Cros and Émile Goudeau were quintessential Bohemian poets. This first English translation of their inspired collaboration of “Upside-Down Stories” satirized hot topics of the 1880s such as as divorce and capital punishment with bawdy humor and wild flights of fancy. These nutty gems will surprise & delight contemporary readers.

“THE SHEER PLAYFULNESS OF CERTAIN FANCIFUL PARTS OF CROS’S WORK MUST NOT LET US FORGET THAT IN THE CENTER OF SOME OF HIS FINEST POEMS, A REVOLVER IS AIMED AT US.”—ANDRÉ BRETON

Raunchy Wordplay

This scandalous little work appeared in France under the title “Letter to La Présidente.”

Théophile Gautier (1811-1872) was a novelist and poet, one of the champions of Romanticism. In 1850, he and his friend Louis de Cormenin visited Italy, so he wrote his friends back home a letter about their adventures. The result was a rollicking “filthy letter,” packed with jokes, slang, obsolete words, literary allusions, puns, alliterations, neologisms, Spoonerisms, verses, outrageous metaphors, and Rabelaisian lists. It was published privately in 1890, and became a clandestine classic.

A FILTHY LETTER
Théophile Gautier
Translated from the French by Doug Skinner,
with an introduction & notes on the text
Pocket Erotica Series #28
74 pp., 4 x 6 inches;
979-8-9894330-7-0

“A literary masterwork”…

We are proud to present this extraordinary blend of fiction, myth, dream and memory – filled with haunting literary pleasures.


A Fashion Dictionary is a literary masterwork in which Gaurav Monga firmly and clearly displays his enviable talents, and marks him as a writer to be reckoned with. Make no mistake, the entries he has written are alive with story. Monga’s impressive ability to find and firmly entrench story in the terms, phrases and articles of clothing he references is a literary feat worth noting, and admiring.”
Jason E. Rolfe, author of Invisible Influences and The Puppet-Play of Doctor Gall

“A subtle and deft exploration not only of fashion but of everything fashion rubs up against: identity, selfhood, desire, death. Monga strikes a very delicate balance in this dictionary that both is and isn’t a dictionary, sliding from the descriptive to the narrative and back again, creating a pattern as elegant as a spider’s web draped quivering and fragile over the tips of one’s fingers.” Brian Evenson

“What a little gem of a book for anyone who uses clothes or words, but especially for those who are used to reading and writing about fashion, as it offers a respite from the tired and familiar narratives of both academic fashion theory and fashion journalism. It manages to “make strange” the most familiar and mundane items like ankle socks, buttons and hair bands; it gives body, sensuality and a defiant flair to Pathani suits and Phirans; it endows neck ties with an eerie sensibility. Oscillating between fact and dream, real and imaginary spacetimes and histories, literary and fashion references, it perpetually keeps the reader on their toes and trains us to (sometimes anxiously) question the agencies and agendas of everyday objects whose close proximity to us usually allow them to remain unnoticed.”
Jana Melkumova-Reynolds, cultural sociologist

“Highly recommended!”
—Seb Emina, READ ME

A Fashion Dictionary
Gaurav Monga
151 pp., $14.95
ISBN 979-8989433032


ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Gaurav Monga is a writer and teacher originally from New Delhi. He is the author of Tears for Rahul Dutta (Philistine Press, 2012), Family Matters (Eibonvale Press, 2019), Ruins (Desirepath Publishers, 2019), Costumes of the Living (Snuggly Books, 2020), My Father, The Watchmaker (Hawakal Publishers, 2020), The English Teacher (Raphus Press, 2021) and Raju and Kishore (Raphus Press, 2022). His work has appeared in numerous literary magazines, including B O D Y, Fanzine, Dismantle and Vestoj. He is a regular contributor to Outlook India.

Happy New Year–It’s Here!

We’re starting off 2024 with a blast—an awesome issue of TYPO: The International Journal of Prototypes.

STARRING: Tim Newton Anderson; Michael Betancourt; David Brizer; Steve Carll; Norman Conquest; Farewell Debut; R J Dent;  Jesse Glass; Reinhard Goering; Rhys Hughes; Tim Hutchings; Mark Kanak; M. Kasper; Amy Kurman; Gabriel de Lautrec; Emilia Loseva; Jim McMenamin; O Homem do Saco; Jasia Reichardt; Doug Rice; Paul Rosheim; Doug Skinner;  Franciszka Themerson; Stefan Thernerson; John Vieira; Gregory Wallace; and Danny Winkler. 

PLUS EIGHT RUSSIAN FUTURISTS:
Velimir Khlebnikov, Igor Terentjev, Aleksey Kruchenykh, Vasily Kamensky, Pavel Kokorin, Tykhon Churylin, Bodjidar (Bogdan Gordejev), and David Burliuk. 

featuring

·     THE EVOLUTION OF IT

·     TOUR DE PANTS

·     PORTRAITS OF SADE

·     SECONDHAND SMOKE SIGNALS

·     ALFRED JARRY, TEEN PATAPHYSICIAN

·     ANTIQUARIAN PUZZLES

·     RUSSIAN FUTURISTS

·     CUBIST TALES

·     DRIBBLING DRABBLES

·     MR. COPYRIGHT

·     REINHARD GOERING STORIES

·     THEMERSON’S LOST FILM

·     FOUND FINDS

·     TYPO’S TYPOS

            And much more

Grab your copy today.

TYPO #4: The International Journal of Prototypes
edited by Norman Conquest
trade paperback; 152 pp., illustrated; $20

Throw open the curtain!

MISANTHROPIC STOCKING STUFFER

After years of exhaustive field work amongst “the others” and a deep-dive into the primary literature of the tribe, the author here offers – for the first time – new tools to assist the reader in complicating their lives and excavating their souls.

“Terrible advice, artfully told.” – Larry McCaffery, author of Lit-Crit.

PEOPLE TO AVOID
Jim McMenamin
Absurdist Texts & Documents No. 46
112 pp., $12

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jim McMenamin is a writer and self-care Guru stationed in Southern California.

Just in time for the holidays!

We proudly present the 15th volume in our grand Alphonse Allais Collection. Here is France’s greatest humorist in top form. This first English translation of WE ARE NOT SHEEP features 44 witty tales, PLUS four extra stories, translated by Allaisian scholar Doug Skinner, with his erudite introduction and complete notes on the text.

If you’re looking for laughter—(and, hell, who isn’t?)—this delightful edition is a gift that will long be remembered.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

ALPHONSE ALLAIS (1854-1905) was a peerless French humorist, celebrated posthumously by the Surrealists for his elegant style and disturbing imagination. In addition to composing absurdist texts for newspapers such as LE CHAT NOIR and LE JOURNAL, he experimented with holorhymes, pioneered conceptual art, and created the earliest known example of a silent musical composition: FUNERAL MARCH FOR THE OBSEQUIES OF A DEAF MAN (1884). Ahead of his time (as well as ours), Allais is needed now more than ever. His mischievous work remains fresh, funny, and always surprising.

ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR

DOUG SKINNER has contributed to Black Scat Review, The Fortean Times, Strange Attractor Journal, Fate, Weirdo, Nickelodeon, Cabinet, and other fine publications. Black Scat Books has published several books of his stories, cartoons, and songs, as well as translations of Alphonse Allais, Charles Cros, Alfred Jarry, Pierre-Corneille Blessebois, Luigi Russolo, Caroline Crépiat, and Corinne Taunay. Other translations include Three Dreams (Giovanni Battista Nazari, Magnum Opus Hermetic Sourceworks), The Cocktail Hour (Marcel Requien and Lucien Farnoux, with Gaylor Olivier, Corps Reviver), and Principles of Cerebral Mechanics (Charles Cros, Wakefield Press). 

He has written music for several dance companies; his scores for actor/clown Bill Irwin include The Regard of Flight, The Courtroom, The Regard Evening, and The Harlequin Studies.

TV and movie appearances include Great Performances, Martin Mull’s Talent Takes a Holiday, Mike’s Talent Show, Ed, Crocodile Dundee II, several of George Kuchar’s videos, and a smattering of commercials.

His albums That Regrettable Weekend, It All Went Pfft, and An Afternoon in the Arboretum are available on Bandcamp.

Room Service…

Pihla, a beautiful journalist from Helsinki, is on an assignment to cover subterranean sex scenes across Europe. Although detached from the decadence she witnesses, Pihla needs a respite, and checks into the Grand Hotel Vittoria in the hills of Tuscany. And then she meets Giovanni…

The 27th volume in our collectible Pocket Erotica series is a sensual work of contemporary fiction by Nina Ansani. Warm up your holiday and visit the Grand Hotel Vittoria.

BUG OUT!

As the world comes to an end, and the bed bug infestation spreads from France throughout Europe, it is time for a journal devoted to infestation, invasion, and chaos.

Featuring works by Alphonse Allais; Tim Anderson; Tom Bradley; Norman Conquest; Farewell Debut; R J Dent; Larry Fondation; Jesse Glass; Boris Glikman; Rhys Hughes; Harold Jaffe; Amy Kurman; Terri Lloyd; John-Ivan Palmer; Jason E. Rolfe; Paul Rosheim; Thaddeus Rutkowski; Doug Skinner; Yuriy Tarnawsky; Corinne Taunay; Catrin Welz-Stein; Tom Whalen; Carol White; and D. Harlan Wilson.

Bed Bug in Portland!