[1] The book was dedicated to the Surrealist painter André Masson and its preface was on the theme of a modern mythology.

The two main sections of the books describe two places in Paris in great detail: Le Passage de l'Opera and Parc des Buttes-Chaumont.

The detailed descriptions provide a realistic backdrop for surrealist spectacles such as the transformation of a shop into a seascape in which a siren appears and then disappears.

[2] Walter Benjamin was deeply affected by the book, which became a point of departure for his unfinished magnum opus, The Arcades Project.

[3] Louis Aragon was disappointed with the book's reception by the French literary establishment which he considered too bourgeois and commercial.