Les Fleurs du mal (1861) was the first great modern work of poetry and one of the few books of poems to become an international bestseller. This edition contains all of Baudelaire’s poetry in verse with Francis Scarfe’s scrupulous and inventive prose translations at the foot of the pages. Together with his detailed and authoritative introduction, this presentation makes an ideal edition both for the student and for the general reader who wishes to tackle the French original with a reliable prose guide at hand.

 

The companion volume, Paris Blues, contains Baudelaire’s prose poems (`Le Spleen de Paris’ or `Petits Poèmes en prose’) and the short novel La Fanfarlo (1847), a charming extravaganza written in his early twenties.

 

Francis Scarfe (1911-1986) was a lecturer in French poetry at Glasgow University before and again after World War II. From 1959 to 1978, he was director of the British Institute in Paris. For his work on Baudelaire he was awarded the Prix de L’Île Saint-Louis (1966). On retirement he was made a Chevalier de la Légion d’honneur. He was the author of four collections of poetry, a verse translation of selected fables of La Fontaine, and the critical works Auden and After and André Chénier, His Life and Work.