Reviews

The Exploits of Engelbrecht by Maurice Richardson

thecommonswings's review

4.0

Of course the true surrealist boxer was Arthur Cravan, a fascinating man and evidence that Richardson really knows his stuff. As these were mostly from Lilliput magazine, obviously Richardson tries to broaden the humour a bit and Dali is the surrealist of choice, but Lord Berners gets a lovely cameo. It’s a great deal of fun but I suspect would have been significantly better read piecemeal rather than as a whole - it gets all a bit samey after a while, which is the nature of stories published in a magazine to some degree. But when it’s great it’s truly magnificent, with The Thing That is Scarcely A Thing, The Formless Shape and the Shapeless Form all up with the greats. I suspect there’s a lot of other allusions lost to us, but I suspect the Oldest Member gave the central idea to Richardson and Dr Sadismus is a nice tip of the surrealist hat to Beachcomber

We can’t ignore James Boswell’s extraordinary art which is like a nightmare version of Carl Giles. I would dearly love to see some of the other artists like Hoffnung’s take on the character at some point

chramies's review

4.0

Well no, I haven't read it, but a story from it "Six Rounds with Grandfather Clock" (IIRC) appeared in "A Book of Wit and Humour."
Curious note: the painter-boxer-provocateur (i.e. troll) Arthur Cravan (presumed dead 1918) was to a large extent a real-life Engelbrecht the Surrealist Boxer. Although he was 6 foot 4 so definitely not a dwarf.