Andre Breton described Maldoror as -the expression of a revelation so complete it seems to exceed human potential.- Little is known about its pseudonymous author, aside from his real name (Isidore Ducasse), birth in Uruguay (1846) and early death in Paris (1870). Lautreamont bewildered his contemporaries, but the Surrealists modeled their efforts after his black humor and poetic leaps of logic, exemplified by the oft-quoted line, -As beautiful as the chance meeting on a dissecting table of a sewing machine and an umbrella.- Maldoror 's shocked first publisher refused to bind the...