Salvador DalÔi: mad genius or cunning manipulator? That question has haunted DalÔi's career. Ever since he burst upon the scene in the 1920s with his astounding draughtsmanship and surrealistic vision he has been both admired and reviled. Meryle Secrest goes behind the carefully maintained faƯcade to reveal many hitherto unknown details of DalÔi's troubled childhood, suggesting that the artist's early works are actually autobiographical to a much greater extent than has been thought. Her study examines DalÔi's childhood to find the origins of his later behavior and the reason for his frantic attempts to assert his individuality. DalÔi's emotional crises, his successes and failures in Europe and America, his careers as artist, designer and showman, are vividly and compelling described, as is his mysterious near-death in a 1984 fire and his final years as prisoner of his own self-made persona.