Arthur Rimbaud was one of the wildest, most uncompromising poets of his age, alt
hough his brief literary career was over by the time he was twenty-one when he e
mbarked on a new life as a trader in Africa. This edition brings together his ex
traordinary poetry and more than a hundred of his letters, most of them written
after he had abandoned literature. A master of French verse forms, the young Rim
baud set out to transform his art, and language itself, by a systematic "disorde
ring of all the senses," often with the aid of alcohol and drugs. The result is
a highly innovative, modern body of work, obscene and lyrical by turns--a rigoro
us journey to extremes.
