Les Fleurs du Mal

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

The full journey through Inferno, Purgatorio and Paradiso in French. Over a thousand pages, and the Inferno alone is worth the download.

Dante Alighieri

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