Category: short stories

11 is HEAVEN

IN THIS ISSUE: Alphonse Allais; Terry Bradford; Norman Conquest; Lynn Crawford; John Dee; S. C. Delaney; Luc Fierens; Shawn Garrett; Edward Gauvin; Paulette Hampton; Isidore Isou; Ben D. Jaeger; Paul Kavanagh; Amy Kurman; Joel Lipman; George MacLennan; André Pieyre de Mandiargues; Marcel Mariën; Sean G. Meggeson; Thomas Owen; Angelo Pastormerlo; Agnès Potier; Bernard Quiriny; Paul Rosheim; Alberto Savinio; Doug Skinner; Corinne Taunay; Michel Vachey; and D. Harlan Wilson.

Featuring

  • SUBTERRANEAN ART SHARDS
  • “PAPA BACH”
  • MARCEL MARIEN’S “AUTOPORTRAIT”
  • LUC FIERENS COLLAGES
  • D. HARLAN WILSON SPECULATIVE FICTION
  • “ISOU: THE JAMES DEAN OF LETTRISM”
  • JAEGER ON “THE RITES OF ECSTASY

PLUS new translations of André Pieyre de Mandiargues, Michel Vachey, Alberto Savinio, Alphonse Allais, Bernard Quiriny, & Thomas Owen.

TYPO: The International Journal of Prototypes #11
154 pp., trade paperback; $20
ISBN 979-8-9923826-8-6

PUMPING IRONY

In this issue we’re pleased to present the first English translation of a novelette by the surrealist writer André Pieyre de Mandiargues. You’ll also find previously unavailable translations from a diverse selection of neglected avant-garde literary masters like Marcel Schneider, Bernard Quiriny, Fritz von Herzmanovsky-Orlando, Walter Serner, and others. While these writings range from baroque to fantastic, from dada to surrealism and back, together they helped populate modern literary art.

TYPO #10: The International Journal of Prototypes
Trade paperback, 158 pp., $20
ISBN 979-8-9923826-6-2 

Poèmes phonétiques; DADA; Surrealism, visual poetry; fantasy; Lettrism; experimental fiction.

IN THIS ISSUE: Chiara Ambrosio; Tim Newton Anderson; Terry Bradford; Shawn Garrett; Edward Gauvin; Fritz von Herzmanovsky-Orlando; Thibault Jacquot-Paratte; Mark Kanak; Amy Kurman; André Pieyre de Mandiargues; George MacLennan; Frank Nims; Giambattista Palatino; Angelo Pastormerlo; Maurice Pons; Mirtha Pozzi; Bernard Quiriny; Jason E. Rolfe; Marcel Schneider; Walter Serner; Doug Skinner; Phil Demise Smith; Lono Taggers; Corinne Taunay; Gregory Wallace.

TYPO 10 — an instant collector’s item. Available worldwide.

To order outside the USA, click on your flag:

CA

Dig in!

Alphonse Allais’s collected stories were published in eleven volumes between 1892 and 1902. He called these books his “Anthumous Works.” With the publication of Feeding Time, Black Scat has now issued all of them—all first English translations by Doug Skinner.

Our stellar, 17-volume Alphonse Allais Collection is now complete and includes six additional volumes: Captain Cap: His Adventures, His Ideas, His Drinks; The Blaireau Affair, Allais’s only novel; Selected Plays of Alphonse Allais; I Am Sarcey, his stories featuring Francisque Sarcey; Alphonse Allais’s Masks: Deluxe Special Edition. (an illustrated version of one of his stories); and our sampler, The Alphonse Allais Reader.

If you haven’t discovered France’s greatest humorist, dig in!

FEEDING TIME
Alphonse Allais
Translated by Doug Skinner
Paperback; 168 pp.; $14.95
ISBN 979-8-9923826-4-8 

TYPO #9: A Fusion of Avant-Garde Literature

Like a robot assembled in a subterranean laboratory, this issue contains prototypical pieces from around the world. Many contributors were previously seen in so-called Obscure Publications. Others have been freshly translated from rare French, Belgian, and Russian books and magazines. Some authors are well-known in avant-garde or fantasy circles. Some artists & writers are just breaking through. But all have been brought together to create this sublime issue for your pleasure.

FEATURING: Alphonse Allais; Chiara Ambrosio; Robert Archambeau; Pierre Bettencourt;  Greg Boyd; Terry Bradford; H.V. Chao; Norman Conquest; Lynn Crawford; Caroline Crépiat; R J Dent; Mark Ducharme;  Jean-Luc Garneau; Edward Gauvin; Vasilisk Gnedov; Kirpal Gordon; Michael Gould; André Hardellet; Jordan Jones; Amy Kurman;  Joel Lipman; Emilia Loseva; Stephen-Paul Martin; George MacLennan; Henri Michaux; Claudio Parentela;  Angelo Pastormerlo; Gabriel & Marcel Piqueray; Bernard Quiriny; Doug Skinner; Renée Vivien; Danny Winkler; Bill Wolak.

TYPO #9: The International Journal of Prototypes
152 pp., trade paperback; $20
ISBN 979-8-9923826-0-0

It’s a bird… !

We are thrilled to present our first book of 2025 – THE VIRTUOSO PARROT & OTHER STORIES.

Claude-Sosthène Grasset d’Orcet (1828-1900) wrote startling articles and stories about secret societies, hidden bloodlines, and his own idiosyncratic views of history. His obsession with finding puns and rebuses, in both ancient inscriptions and modern speech, influenced generations of occultists and was the inspiration for the “language of the birds” expounded by the enigmatic Fulcanelli.

This book is Grasset d’Orcet’s first appearance in English! It contains five of his odd short stories, a contemporary obituary, and detailed notes on his ideas and allusions.

At last, the virtuoso parrot speaks to English readers!

Sweet Sixteen!

We are elated, delirious, tickled, thrilled, and ecstatic to announce the 16th volume in our acclaimed Alphonse Allais Collection. This first English translation of Allais’s Pour cause de fin de bail has been exquisitely prepared and introduced (with notes on the text) by master translator Doug Skinner.

 

This wickedly amusing collection contains fifty-three absurdist tales—packed with phantom limbs, floating brothels, tapeworms, ostrich shoes, and other remarkable things. It makes a jolly beach read, or to browse in your hammock whilst sipping a cool glass of lemonade—or better yet, a jug of absinthe.

 

So, if you haven’t already begun gathering your personal Allais collection—shame on you!—now is the time to start. Scroll down and you’ll find unadulterated links to each edition for convenient purchasing.

Happy Summer!

Le propriétaire

My Rent Is Due!

Let’s Not Hit Each Other

We Are Not Sheep

2 + 2 = 5

Loves, Delights, & Organs

Alphonse Allais Reader

The Blaireau Affair

Captain Cap: His Adventures, His Ideas, His Drinks

Pink and Apple-Green

Double Over

I Am Sarcey

Long Live Life!

Masks: Deluxe Special Edition

No Bile!

Selected Plays of Alphonse Allais

The Squadron’s Umbrella  

 

A BIG NEW ISSUE!

Our biggest issue yet—169 pages—packed with prototypes, visual poetry, Belgian fiction, chronograms, Symbolist decadence, vintage surrealism & much more. Featuring an international cast of artists, poets, and writers, including: Frédéric Acquaviva; Terry J. Bradford; Apollo Camembert; Steve Carll; Norman Conquest; Lynn Crawford; Caroline Crépiat; Noël Devaulx; Shawn Garrett; Edward Gauvin; Nico Kirschenbaum; John Kruse; Amy Kurman; Jean Lorrain; Emilia Loseva; Jean Muno; Opal Louis Nations; Clemente Palma; Claudio Parentela; Vojtěch Preissig; Vania Russo; Nelly Sanchez; Marcel Schneider; and Doug Skinner.

Maria De Naglowska: Surrealist Muse

The Sapphic Works of  Pierre Louÿs

Italian Precursors of the Incohérents

Symbolist decadence

Vintage typography

A phenakistoscope

Latvian collage

Belgian fiction

Czech eye candy

German Romanticism

Peruvian phantasmagoria

Silent cinema

Cryptic chronograms

Oulipian wordplay

Visual poetry

Asemic specimens

Weird tales

& more

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

Funny Farm …

What happens when constellations socialize, when Faust and the Devil start drinking, when imaginary friends gain imaginary friends, when Sleeping Beauty and Rip van Winkle trade places, when Duncan paints a cockatrice, when a terrifying Werechurch roams the land? And was it really a good idea for August and Collier to start that potato farm, especially given Collier’s troubled past? Doug Skinner defines his own comic genre, filled with vivid characters, fictional physics, and surprising narratives, often filtered through stringent constraints to keep the language lively. If you read only one book this year, read this one over and over again!