Surrealism looks beyond the post-1945 period to survey all of the twentieth century's major art movements. Mary Ann Caws is an internationally respected scholar of Surrealism who has translated many of its major texts and published extensively on the Surrealists' art and writings.

Aside from academic studies and museum catalogues, this is the most comprehensive, art book format survey on Surrealism to date, as it provides an essential overview of the links between the Surrealists' famous artworks. Mary Ann Caws is uniquely qualified to do this; reviewing one of her previous books, Rosalind Krauss, Columbia University's Meyer Schapiro Professor of Art, writes:

‘The specialization of critical labour has meant that gifted readers of surrealist texts are rarely in contact with canny viewers of surrealist objects … Mary Ann Caws brings her readerly skills on both sides of the divide, producing an analysis that, in its generosity, erudition and originality, greatly enriches our experience of the movement.’