Louis Aragon gained international reputation as a novelist, poet, journalist and essayist. During his first important creative period from the end of the First World War to the beginning of the 1930s Aragon was a co-founder of the surrealistic movement in France.
»Le con d'Irène« was published »albeit anonymously« by René Bonel in Paris. While he admitted his authorship in private circles, Aragon never acknowledged it in public. The erotic illustrations were made by André Masson, an artist from the surrealistic circle around Breton and Aragon.