Roger Caillois is perhaps best known as co-founder with Georges Bataille (and Michel Leiris) of the Collge de sociologie . Caillois and Bataille worked extensively together on questions concerning the sacred in the autonomous Collge from 1936 to 1939. While Bataille has found a place among significant 20th century French thinkers, Caillois has been undervalued and today his work registers softly if at all. As a result, compared with the critical literature on Bataille, contemporary work on Caillois is much less developed. Claudine Frank?s The Edge of Surrealism: A Roger Caillois Reader will help to rectify this situation. As the title suggests the Reader is focused by Caillois?s relationship with surrealism. Part I ?Theory and the Thirties? begins with a first section that tackles Caillois?s relations with key figures such as Paul Eluard and Andr Breton, as well as introducing the infamous psychoanalytic readings of entomology ?The Praying Mantis? and ?Mimicry and Legendary Psychasthenia.? The latter have been available in English translation for some time. The second section allows us to widen the context of Caillois?s criticism of surrealist ?hedonism? through an anti-Darwinian and anti-utilitarian theorization of myth through the lens of biology. These first two sections provide the opportunity to appreciate the critical acumen of Caillois?s engagement with science, which would be a life-long obsession. The third section of Part I revisits the Collge years. Some of Caillois?s contributions to the sociology of the sacred are here alongside his statement of reticence in the face of his colleague Bataille?s