National Network for Equitable Library Service

A reissue of Rimbaud's highly influential work, with a new preface by Patti Smith and the original 1945 New Directions cover design by Alvin Lustig. New Directions is pleased to announce the relaunch of the long-celebrated bilingual edition of Rimbaud's A Season In Hell & The Drunken Boat—a personal poem of damnation as well as a plea to be released from "the examination of his own depths." Rimbaud originally distributed A Season In Hell to friends as a self-published booklet, and soon afterward, at the age of nineteen, quit poetry altogether. New Directions's edition was among the first to be published in the U.S., and it quickly became a classic. Rimbaud's famous poem "The Drunken Boat" was subsequently added to the first paperbook printing. Allen Ginsberg proclaimed Arthur Rimbaud as "the first punk"—a visionary mentor to the Beats for both his recklessness and his fiery poetry. This new edition proudly dons the original Alvin Lustig–designed cover, and an introduction by another famous rebel—and now National Book Award–winner—Patti Smith.