Alphonse Allais was a peerless French humorist, celebrated posthumously by the Surrealists for his elegant style and disturbing imagination.  Among other things, he wrote a series of wonderful stories about his friend Albert Caperon.  In Allais’s hands, “Captain Cap” became an adventurer and inventor, with a disdain for bureaucracy and a heroic thirst for cocktails.  He collected the Cap stories in his last book, Captain Cap: His Adventures, His Ideas, His Drinks, in 1902.  It remains popular in France, but has never been translated into English.  So, I’m doing just that, in a series of chapbooks for Black Scat Books.

The first installment, Captain Cap Before the Electorate, contains Allais’s dossier on Caperon’s farcical run for parliament in 1893.  It’s published in a limited edition of 125, with illustrations and introduction by the undersigned, and comes with a free Cap campaign button for the first twelve customers.  You can cast that vote at Black Scat Books.

(Posted by Doug Skinner)