Paul Valery's most celebrated collection Charmes was first published in 1922. It contains several of his most famous poems, including "ebauche d'un serpent" and "Le cimetiere marin" – in Yvor Winters' view "the two greatest short poems ever written"....

Paul Verlaine (1844-1896) wrote three secret collections of verse, of which "Femmes and Hombres" remained almost unobtainable even in France until the 1970s. These strangely unrespectable poems celebrate the pleasures of sex, with women and men respe...

Francois Villon was born in Paris in 1431. His life was blighted by destitution and ill health, robbery and murder, torture and exile. While we do not know what became of Villon after his 32nd year, the poems he produced in just six years capture in...