A Season in Hell and Other Works/Une saison en enfer et oeuvres diverses

Widely regarded as one of the originators of prose poems and certainly one of the masters of the form, the boy genius Arthur Rimbaud (1854-1891) created a huge and incredibly rich body of work -- imaginative, subtle, and infinitely suggestive -- before he reached the age of 20 and renounced poetry writing forever. The prose poems in this superb collection, written when Rimbaud was between 15 and 20, became a rallying point of the poetic avant-garde during the late nineteenth century and remain a source of inspiration for their youthful, rebellious spirit and unmatched verbal allure. Here in their entirety are the great prose-poem collections A Season in Hell and Illuminations. Most of his early verse poems, among them such masterpieces as "The Drunken Boat," are also included. Witty, sarcastic, and expressive, these poems -- required reading for students of world literature and of interest to a wide, general audience -- appear in the original French, with fine new literal translations on facing pages. Book jacket.

Stanley Appelbaum served for decades as Dover's Editor in Chief until his retirement in 1996. He continues to work as a selector, compiler, editor, and translator of literature in a remarkable range of languages that includes Spanish, Italian, French, German, and Russian.