Translator's note / Richard Howard
Preface to the 1970 edition
Preface to the 1957 edition
PART I: MYTHOLOGIES. In the ring
The Harcourt actor
Romans in the movies
The writer on vacation
The "blue blood" cruise
Criticism blind and dumb
Saponids and detergents
The poor and the proletariat
Martians
Operations Astra
Conjugals
Dominici, or, The Triumph of Literature
Iconography of Abbé Pierre
Novels and children
Toys
Paris not flooded
Bichon among the blacks
A sympathetic worker
Garbo's face
Power and "cool"
Wine and milk
Steak-frites
The nautilus and the Bateau Ivre
Depth advertising
A few words from Monsieur Poujade
Adamov and language
Einstein's brain
The jet-man
Racine is Racine
Billy Graham at the Vel'D'Hiv'
The Dupriez trial
Shock photos
Two myths of the new theater
The tour de France as epic
The Glue Guide
Agony columns
Ornamental cuisine
The Batory cruise
The man in the street on strike
African grammar
Neither/Nor criticism
Striptease
The new Citroën
Literature according to Minou Drouet
Electoral photogeny
Lost Continent
Astrology
The Bourgeois art of song
Plastic
The great family of man
At the music hall
The Lady of the Camellias
Poujade and the intellectuals.