Announcing new scholarship from the collections:  Sheila Legge: Phantom of Surrealism (Dark Windows Press, 2015) by Silvano Levy.

FROM THE PUBLISHER: Sheila Legge made the headlines in the hot summer of 1936 when she paraded in Trafalgar Square as the ‘Surrealist Phantom of Sex Appeal’. The public was perplexed by this elegantly dressed young woman whose head was completely shrouded in red roses. Since then, nothing more has been heard of her and she has remained a mystery for some eight decades. Silvano Levy’s painstaking research has now pieced together the main elements of Sheila’s life and involvement in surrealism. His study establishes the Phantom’s biographical chronology and lineage, as well as offering commentaries on texts and other traces she has left behind. Fully illustrated throughout this book casts some light on an intriguing character in the history of British Surrealism.

Beinecke Collections Consulted: David Gascoyne Papers (GEN MSS 529)