Lot Essay
Roland Penrose comments on Roy Edwards in his scrapbook: he was "a young poet who had recently completed an excellent translation of the poems of Valentine. Roy first appeared in my life just after the war, when he was still at school. Through the post I received poems and collages that showed a talent well supported by an enthusiastic use of surrealist imagery. Since then his heroes are often as black as his humour, which is predominantly of the same strain as the Humour Noir of André Breton... Since his early visits to Downshire Hall he has become an invaluable extension of my memory.." (see R. Penrose, Scrapbook, 1900-81 (Painters & sculptors), London, 1981, p. 284).