Growing up with anarchists, surrealists and pataphysicians

Personal reminiscences of the anarchist secretary of the British Surrealist Group; editor of 'Free Union', the surrealist review '; Provéditeur-Délégataire, Régent de Brittanicité Faustrolliene et de Travaux Pratiques de Alcoölisme of the Collège de Pataphysique (the science of imaginary solutions"; translator of Alfred Jarry (The Ubu Plays) and Boris Vian's The Empire Builders, The Generals’ Tea Party and The Knackers’ ABC.

Taylor's extensive work as a translator of modern and avant-garde French literature and books about art included Surrealism and Painting by André Breton and plays by Boris Vian including The Empire Builders, The Generals’ Tea Party and The Knackers’ ABC. Others were The Cenci by Antonin Artaud, Paris Peasant by Louis Aragon and numerous works by Alfred Jarry. His collection of Jarry's The Ubu Plays (Methuen, London, 1968) included translations by himself and Cyril Connolly and remains in print.

In 1968 Taylor edited French Writing Today, published in the United Kingdom by Penguin and in 1969 by Grove Press in the United States.

Taylor was an editorial advisor and frequent contributor to the London based magazine Art and Artists and was the guest co-editor (with Roger Shattuck) of a special issue (May-June 1960) of the American literary magazine Evergreen Review; titled What is Pataphysics?

With Shattuck he also edited The Selected Works of Alfred Jarry