The Poems

The meteoric and turbulent career of Arthur Rimbaud (1854–1891) was crammed into four teenage years, in which he wrote two masterpieces, The Illuminations and A Season in Hell, and some wonderful short poems. At nineteen he then turned his back on the literary life and left France, travelling to Aden where he lived for ten years, working as a trader. Oliver Bernard’s Rimbaud was first published in the Penguin Poets series in 1962, then as a Penguin Classic in 1986. This newly revised edition of his superb presentation incorporates corrections and revisions and adds Rimbaud’s juvenile Latin verse written as school exercises. The poems are presented in bilingual form with Bernard’s lively and accurate prose versions below the originals. As well as an outline Life of Rimbaud, Bernard has written a useful and entertaining introduction, to which he has added a new Preface and some Additional Notes. A selection of Rimbaud’s letters is also included.