La Divine Comédie

The collection that got its author prosecuted and then rewrote French poetry anyway. Baudelaire on the city, boredom, beauty and decay, in an illustrated edition.

Charles Baudelaire

Everything Rimbaud wrote before he quit poetry at twenty and left for Africa. Le Bateau ivre and Le Dormeur du val are both here.

Arthur Rimbaud

Verlaine's first collection, already full of the musical half-lit verse he became known for. Sixty-five pages, so it is easy to read straight through.

Paul Verlaine

The fables every French schoolchild memorises, starting with the cicada and the ant. Short, rhymed and illustrated, which makes them one of the friendliest ways into French verse.

Jean de La Fontaine

All one hundred and fifty-four sonnets in a French verse translation. The fair youth, the dark lady and the rival poet, in fourteen lines at a time.

William Shakespeare