"The great familiarity I had with the late François Rabelais," Breton writes in the preface, "has moved and even compelled me to bring to light the last of his work, the drolatic dreams of the very excellent and wonderful Patagruel". Despite the claims (echoed too in the book's subtitle), the book's wonderful images are very unlikely to be the work of Rabelais himself — the attribution probably a clever marketing ploy by Breton. Indeed, that this attribution to Rabelais is a ruse might also explain the unusual lack of text beyond the preface, the intimidating task of imitating the comic master's distinctive literary style perhaps one step too far for Breton. The creator of the prints is now widely thought to be François Desprez, a French engraver and illustrator behind two other sets of imaginative designs, similar in style — Recueil de la diuersité des habits (A Collection of Diverse Costumes) and Recueil des effigies des roys de France (A Collection of Pictures of the Kings of France) — both published through Breton in 1567.