With the Chat Noir cabaret (1881-1897) and the Quat'z 'Arts cabaret (1893-1910) as its main focus, and concentrating on individuals who participated in the group activities of the Hydropathes (1878-1881) and the Incoherents (1882-1896), this collection of five essays documents and explores the development of the Montmartre cabaret from 1875 to 1905.

Montmartre is revealed as the primary promoter, catalyst, and often, site for the collaboration of artists, writers, composers, and performers in the production of illustrated journals, books, dramatic pieces, music, puppet shows, and the protocinema invention of shadow theater.

The contributors reveal the essence of Montmartre's artistic, intellectual environment and analyze its inextricable relations with an important, multidisciplinary body of avant-garde, fin-de-siecle art, literature, and music. The Spirit of Montmartre is the story of Paris's earliest, original, avant-garde groups - an essential part of the cultural context for Impressionist and Post-Impressionist painters and for such important writers and composers as Mallarme, Zola, Huysmans, Debussy and Satie.

Relying on Rabelaisian humor, this ephemeral avant-garde group phenomenon anticipates twentieth-century Dada, Surrealism fluxus, and Performance Art. In addition to the editors, the contributors are Olga Anna Dull, Daniel Grojnowski, and Steven Moore Whiting.