BRETON ANDRE: (1896-1966) French writer and poet, the co-founder, leader and principal theorist of surrealism. A small group of three autograph manuscripts, unsigned, by Breton, each one page, 4to (and one slightly smaller), n.p., n.d. (c.1948-52), in French. The fragments of manuscript relate to surrealism and were prepared by Breton at the time of the publication of Maurice Nadeau´s Histoire du surréalisme. In the first two fragments, Breton corrects certain errors that he attributes to Nadeau, without naming him, first revisiting his relationship with Leon Trotsky; the few skirmishes that took place between them did not prevent them from jointly writing the famous text Pour un art révolutionnaire (1938), and although Trotsky preferred to substitute his own name for that of Diego Rivera, it is undeniable that he and Breton were the sole authors. In the second fragment, Breton protests against various attempts to appropriate or encircle Surrealism, citing the 1948 pamphlet published by Éditions Surréalistes, À la niche, les glapisseurs de dieu! and continuing to write of the gaps and inaccuracies in the Histoire du Surréalisme published in 1945, he reproaches Nadeau for seeking to pit him against Benjamin Peret ´mon plus cher et plus ancien compagnon de lutte´ (Translation: ‘my dearest and oldest comrade in arms’), and further states ´Plus spécialement contre moi, un dernier assaut, auquel j'ai dû me décider à faire face, a été mené sournoisement, je suppose au nom du rationalisme le plus étriqué, par l'auteur de certaine Histoire du surréalisme non dénuée de tout mérite mais établie sur la base de témoignages plus ou moins fiables, présentant en outre nombre d'inexactitudes et d'assez singulières lacunes´ (Translation: ´More specifically against me, a final assault, which I had to decide to face, was carried out insidiously, I suppose in the name of the most narrow-minded rationalism, by the author of a certain History of Surrealism, which is not without merit but is based on more or less reliable testimonies and also contains a number of inaccuracies and rather singular gaps´). The third fragment corresponds to the last lines of Breton's interview, subsequently published under the title Où en est le surréalisme, in which he compares surrealist work to the construction of a bird's nest, specifying that he had spent a great deal of time observing birds on Bonaventure Island and in the Canadian forest. Together with a typescript Note historique et critique of six pages relating to the complete radio broadcast on Radio-Canada on 13th January 1953, with particular emphasis on Arcane 17 (partly written in Canada) and on certain experiences related to Breton's stay in Canada in 1944. VG, 4