“He is the poet of rebellion...the greatest of all,” said Albert Camus of Arthur Rimbaud. Rimbaud had staked everything on expressing God and the infinite in this poetry. When this wouldn't work, he resolved, in A Season in Hell, to leave God's love behind and to keep his personal freedom at all costs. But Rimbaud is unable to remake life, to re invent love, and pays the price. The original text appears in French with the acclaimed English translation by Paul Schmidt on facing pages. In the art of Robert Mapplethorpe, as in the poetry of Rimbaud, Man's exploration of his being leads to both darkness and divinity. Seven photogravures by Mapplethorpe illustrate the text with a shared knowledge of the passage through the dark side of the soul.

To preserve the delicate tonal changes and the richness of Mapplethorpe's original photographs, the photogravure plates are printed in two colors: an alizarin black with a surface roll of yellow tint on paper from Cartiere Enrico Magnani, in Pescia, Italy, hand made for the photogravures. The book is bound in red Nigerian Oasis goatskin and the slipcase is covered in black linen, lined with ultrasuede.