One of the most written-about literary figures in the past decade, Arthur Rimbaud left few traces when he abandoned poetry at age twenty-one and disappeared into the African desert. Although the dozen biographies devoted to Rimbaud’s life depend on one main source for information—his own correspondence—a complete edition of these remarkable letters has never been published in English. Until now. A moving document of decline, Rimbaud’s letters begin with the enthusiastic artistic pronouncements of a fifteen-year-old genius, and end with the bitter what-ifs of a man whose life has slipped disastrously away. But whether soapboxing on the essence of art, or struggling under the yoke of self-imposed exile in the desert of his later years, Rimbaud was incapable of writing an uninteresting sentence. As translator and editor Wyatt Mason makes clear in his engaging Introduction, the letters reveal a Rimbaud very different from our expectations. Rimbaud—presented by many biographers as a bohemian wild man—is unveiled as “diligent in his pursuit of his goals . . . wildly, soberly ambitious, in poetry, in everything.” I Promise to Be Good: The Letters of Arthur Rimbaud is the second and final volume in Mason’s authoritative presentation of Rimbaud’s writings. Called by Edward Hirsch “the definitive translation for our time,” Mason’s first volume, Rimbaud Complete (Modern Library, 2002), brought Rimbaud’s poetry and prose into vivid focus. In I Promise to Be Good , Mason adds the missing epistolary pieces to our picture of Rimbaud. “These letters,” he writes, “are proofs in all their variety—of impudence and precocity, of tenderness and rage—for the existence of Arthur Rimbaud.” I Promise to Be Good allows English-language readers to see with new eyes one of the most extraordinary poets in history. From the Hardcover edition.

《致薇拉》是纳博科夫写给妻子薇拉的书信集。他们的婚姻持续了半个多世纪，纳博科夫写给薇拉的书信也从1932年的相识伴随到了最后，纳博科夫几乎所有的作品，均题献给薇拉。纳博科夫和薇拉一直生活在一起，即使小别亦不多见，却仍有约300封信存留。这些信写于1923年至1975年，其中大部分写于20世纪二三十年代，那时纳博科夫在欧洲各国寻找出版商、教职和居留许可，薇拉则留在柏林，懂四种语言的她也只能以秘书为职。纳博科夫的信中大多是最普通的内容，日常的生活、自己的创作、朋友的交往等，还有他自己为薇拉设计的填字游戏和字谜。从这些信件里，可以看到纳博科夫身上所具有的，同时也是他认为艺术家所应有的宝贵精神：好奇、柔情、善意和激情。