The Poems in Prose: Poems in Prose

This volume contains all of Baudelaire’s Petits Poemes en prose , which were written over many years and published in magazines between 1855 and his death in 1867. The French is given on the left-hand page with Francis Scarfe’s translations, which reflect a lifetime’s passion for and intimate understanding of Baudelaire’s work, on the facing page. The appeal of ‘this beautiful book’, says Francis Scarfe in his introduction, ‘lies in its wide range of subjects, its variations of tone and mood, its great variety of presentation and above all in its psychological subtleties. It shows the poet at the height of his powers, totally uninhibited in his expression of wonder, tenderness and compassion’. To these prose poems Francis Scarfe has appended an early prose extravaganza, the short novel La Fanfarlo (1847). The companion volume, The Complete Verse , contains Les Fleurs du mal (1861), Nouvelles Fleurs du mal (1868), Les Aepaves (1866) and all of Baudelaire’s other poetry in verse.