A reissue of Rimbaud's highly influential work, with a new preface by Patti Smith and the original 1945 New Directions cover design by Alvin lustig.

A reissue of Rimbaud’s highly influential work, with a new preface by Patti Smith and the original 1945 New Directions cover design by Alvin lustig. New Directions is pleased to announce the relaunch of the long-celebrated bi- lingual edition of Rimbaud’s A Season In Hell & The Drunken Boat — a personal poem of damnation as well as a plea to be released from “the examination of his own depths.” Rimbaud originally distributed A Season In Hell to friends as a self-published booklet, and soon afterward, at the age of nineteen, quit poetry altogether. New Directions’s edition was among the first to be published in the U.S., and it quickly became a classic. Rimbaud’s famous poem “The Drunken Boat” was subsequently added to the first paperbook printing. Allen Ginsberg proclaimed Arthur Rimbaud as “the first punk” — a visionary mentor to the Beats for both his recklessness and his fiery poetry. This new edition proudly dons the original Alvin Lustig–designed cover, and a introduction by another famous rebel — and now National Book Award–winner — Patti Smith.

Arthur Rimbaud's "A Season in Hell" is a prose poem loosely divided into nine parts. In one part of the poem the poet portrays quite transparently his own relationship with French symbolist poet Paul Verlaine. The two had a brief alcohol and drug fueled affair which finally came to end when Verlaine shot Rimbaud in the wrist in a drunken rage. "A Season in Hell," which has been referred to as a pioneering example of modern symbolism, is included in this collection along with "The Drunken Boat," a fragmented first-person narrative which vividly describes the drifting and sinking of a boat lost at sea. It is probably one of the best known works from Rimbaud's early period. Also included in this edition is what is arguably Rimbaud's masterpiece, "Illuminations." A collection of forty-two poems almost all of which are in a prose format. Albert Camus hailed Rimbaud as "the poet of revolt, and the greatest." This greatness can be readily seen in this exemplary collection of "A Season in Hell, The Drunken Boat, and Illuminations." This edition is printed on premium acid-free paper and follows the translations of James Sibley Watson, Lionel Abel, and Wallace Fowlie.

Arthur Rimbaud's A Season in Hell is a prose poem loosely divided into nine parts. In one part of the poem the poet portrays quite transparently his own relationship with French symbolist poet Paul Verlaine. The two had a brief alcohol and drug fueled affair which finally came to end when Verlaine shot Rimbaud in the wrist in a drunken rage. A Season in Hell, which has been referred to as a pioneering example of modern symbolism, is included in this collection along with The Drunken Boat, a fragmented first-person narrative which vividly describes the drifting and sinking of a boat lost at sea. It is probably the best known work from the representative selection of early poems by the writer presented here in this volume. Also included in this edition is a selection of poems from Rimbaud's masterpiece Illuminations. What is most remarkable about Rimbaud's poetry is that it was produced almost entirely between the ages of seventeen and twenty, when Rimbaud would abruptly give up writing entirely in favor of a more steady working life. His writing he contended was a product of his reckless lifestyle to which he was resolved to abandon.

The classic influential poems by Rimbaud, in a bilingual en face edition featuring acclaimed translations by Louise Varése.

A new translation of the best and most provocative work by France's infamous rebel poet. Poet, prodigy, precursor, punk: the short, precocious, uncompromisingly rebellious career of the poet Arthur Rimbaud is one of the legends of modern literature. By the time he was twenty, Rimbaud had written a series of poems that are not only masterpieces in themselves but that forever transformed the idea of what poetry is. Without him, surrealism is inconceivable, and his influence is palpable in artists as diverse as Henry Miller, John Ashbery, Bob Dylan, and Patti Smith. In this essential volume, renowned translator Mark Polizzotti offers authoritative and inspired new versions of Rimbaud’s major poems and letters, including generous selection of Illuminations and the entirety of his lacerating confession A Season in Hell—capturing as never before not only the meaning but also the daredevil attitudes and incantatory rhythms that make Rimbaud’s works among the most perpetually modern of his or any other generation.

CHARLES NICHOLL, author of SOMEBODY ELSE: ARTHUR RIMBAUD IN AFRICA 1880-91 has written of Dennis J. Carlile's translation of RIMBAUD:THE WORKS. "These are the best renditions of Rimbaud in English since Wallace Fowlie's nearly forty years ago, and many of them surpass that high standard. These poems have been wrestled with, which is the very least they demand, and successfully brought back home. Carlile gets the difficult switches and swoops of tone mostly right, and the linguistic detail is impressive-- for 'un voix etraignait mon coeur gele' you can't get much better than 'a voice would hobble my frostbitten heart'." This new translation of Rimbaud is the first in English to include the fragments and a "Found Poem" in English. Notes and commentary along with a life-chronology and "selected further media" assist the reader in delving into these darkly brilliant visions. RIMBAUD: THE WORKS is the first new English version of this poets work in 25 years. It contains all of his extant work from 1869 to 1875. The book is laid out in four parts. PART ONE contains "A Season In Hell" (1873) along with Delmore Schwartzs perceptive introduction (out of print for over half a century). PART TWO contains all the poetry and prose pieces composed between 1869 and 1875, including THE DRUNKEN BOAT, the "Album Zutique" and the fragments called Bribes first published by Gallimard in 1954. PART THREE consists of "Illuminations" (c. 187274) with a brief preface culled from Enid Starkies ARTHUR RIMBAUD. "Illuminations" is lineated according to the authors manuscript (published in facsimile with facing print text by Editions Bibliothque de lImage 1998) and the order of the text is that of the manuscript. A set of notes for each section defines obscure geographic, linguistic, historical, and mythological allusions found in the text. PART FOUR presents a chronology of the poets life, followed by selected commentary from Aldous Huxley, William H. Gass, Marie-Louise von Franz, Paul Verlaine, Jefferson Humphries, Bertrand Mathieu, Sean Lennon, and Ralph Vaughan Williams, among others. A guide to selected further media (books, music, CD-ROM, video, and film) is also included. [Aside from "Illuminations," which is based on the manuscript copy, the French texts utilized for the translation were those of Gallimard (ed. Forestier) and Flammarion (ed. Steinmetz).] Cover portrait and frontispiece of Rimbaud plus three illustrations by Alexia Montibon.

This excellently translated collection of witty, sarcastic, and expressive works includes the complete version of Rimbaud's autobiographical A Season in Hell, his entire Illuminations, a large selection of early verse poems, and "The Drunken Boat," considered by many to be his masterpiece.