Comte de Lautréamont, the pen name of Isidore Ducasse, was an enigmatic Parisian author who is often credited with writing the first surrealist book, Les Chants de Maldoror, in 1867 and shortly thereafter died at the young age of 24. Many of the surrealists (Dali, André Breton, Antonin Artaud, Marcel Duchamp, Man Ray, Max Ernst, etc...) in the early 1900s cited Ducasse’s novel as a major inspiration to their own works and Maldoror has continued to fascinate people since its publication.