The Grand Guignol: An illustrated Lecture and Book Launch with Mel Gordon

• Books & Literature
• Film

From 1897 until its sudden closure in 1962, The Theatre du Grand Guignol was one of Paris most popular and celebrated attractions. Devoted to ghastly scenic effects and monstrous plot turns, the Grand Guignol provided early Hollywood with novel techniques and source material for all of its horror genres and psychological thrillers. Anaïs Nin immortalized the Grand Guignol, declaring that “all our nightmares of sadism and perversion were played out on that stage.”

Tonight, join us as we celebrate the republication of Mel Gordon’s long out-of-print The Grand Guignol: The Theatre of Fear and Terror with an illustrated lecture featuring new pictorials and cinematic shorts. Attendees will also have the chance to purchase (and have signed!) copies of this new expanded edition, with additional text and images including a color insert of Grand Guignol posters; the 1938 autobiographical account of Maxa, the companys leading female performer entitled I Am the Maddest Woman in the World; and the controversial playscript Orgy in the Lighthouse.