Perhaps a better title for this volume might have been “80 or so Drawings We Got the Rights to, Many of Which Are Erotic.” With portraits of subjects ranging of famous personages to objects of his affection to school friends, this book offers an unusually strong cross section of Cocteau’s art. Printed on matte paper, the drawings presented here were created primarily during the 1930s. Approximately 16 rather explicit drawings are from the second edition of his unhappy tale of homosexual love, Le Livre Blanc. Originally published anonymously to protect his mother while she was alive, the drawings were later added to the second edition. Also included are an introduction, which provides the background to the art presented, and a chronology of Cocteau’s life. JAT

Publisher: Dufour
Hardback: 110 pages
Illustrated

This slim volume follows the adventures of a youth of humble origins who exploits the privileges garnered through being mistaken for the relative of a great French general during World War I. He is befriended by a noblewoman and her daughter and assists with their genteel wartime charities. But, hungering for action, Guillaume secures a position at the Flemish front and discovers that the 19th-century notions of gallantry have little place among the horrors of a 20th-century mechanized war. An elegiac fable, The Impostor economically illustrates the passing of the grace and elegance of the European aristocracy as the modern world emerged with a vengeance. JAT

Publisher: Dufour
Paperback: 133 pages
Illustrated

Dali’s only novel depicts the lives and loves of a group of aristocratic characters who, in their beauty, luxury and extravagance, symbolize the decadence of Europe in the ‘30s.

Publisher: Dufour
Paperback: 319 pages
Illustrated