"Elliot is both a passionate and accurate translator and his Ronsard and Victor Hugo are as luminous as his versions of Verlaine and Mallarmé… his natural lyricism and acute sense of form make his French translations a scintillating collection."—Elizabeth Jennings. "An attractively varied collection, translated with diligence and ingenuity."—Edwin Morgan.

Alistair Elliot (1932-2018) published nine books of verse translation, including Verlaine’s Femmes/Hombres (Anvil Press, 1982/2004), Heine’s The Lazarus Poems (MidNAG/Carcanet, 1979), Roman Food Poems (Prospect Books, 2003); and for Bloodaxe, French Love Poems (1991), Italian Landscape Poems (1994) and Paul Valéry’s La Jeune Parque (1997). He translated Euripides’ Medea for Jonathan Kent's 1982 Almeida Theatre production featuring Diana Rigg which later transferred from the West End to Broadway, and he reconstructed Euripides’ play Phaethon from the fragments (Oberon Books, 2008). His own poetry titles included Contentions (Ceolfrith Press, Sunderland, 1977); On the Appian Way (1984) and Talking Back (1984) with Secker & Warburg; My Country: Collected Poems (1989), Turning the Stones (1993), and Facing Things (1997) from Carcanet; and The Real Poems (2008), Imaginary Lines (2012), Telling the Stones (2017) and Great Games (2018) from Shoestring. Born in Liverpool, he was evacuated with his two sisters to Florida in 1940, living for five years at the Palm Beach home of industrialist Charles Merrill, father of the poet James Merrill, while attending school in the US. His later education was at Fettes College, Edinburgh, and Christ Church, Oxford. He did various jobs after university including vegetable invoice clerk in Covent Garden market, night steriliser in a food factory, waiter, film critic, supply teacher, and actor and stage manager with the English Children's Theatre under Caryl Jenner (1957-59). He combined writing and translating (from Greek, Latin and French) with his day job as a librarian for the rest of his working life, starting as an assistant librarian at Kensington Public Library (1959-61). From there he moved to the University of Keele (1961-65), Pahlavi University, Shiraz, Iran (1965-67), and lastly Newcastle University, where he was Special Collections Librarian from 1967 until taking early retirement in 1982. His awards included a Cholmondeley Award from the Society of Authors in 2000.

Arthur Rimbaud 10 Les Chercheuses de poux Gérard de Nerval 12 La Cousine Leconte de Lisle 14 Le Manchy Gérard de Nerval 18 Fantaisie Anonyme 20 Renaud le tueur de femmes Charles Baudelaire 24 La Géante Jean de la Fontaine 26 Tircis et Amarante Saint-Amant 30 Le Tombeau de Marmousette Pierre de Ronsard 34 Sonnets pour Hélène Paul Verlaine 36 Nevermore Joachim du Bellay 38 À Vénus Victor Hugo 40 «Elle était déchaussée» José-Maria de Heredia 42 Antoine et Cléopâtre Paul Valéry 44 Les Pas Pierre de Ronsard 46 Élégie xix Charles Baudelaire 48 Parfum exotique Charles Baudelaire 50 Sed Non Satiata Alfred de Musset 52 À Julie Tristan l’Hermite 54 Jalousie Maurice Scève 56 Délie Pernette du Guillet 58 «Non que je veuille ôter la liberté» Jules Laforgue 60 Solo de lune Stéphane Mallarmé 68 Brise marine Victor Hugo 70 «Demain, dès l’aube» Stéphane Mallarmé 72 Autre Éventail Victor Hugo 74 «Jeanne était au pain sec» Théophile Gautier 76 Les Joujoux de la Morte José-Maria de Heredia 78 La Jeune Morte Paul Verlaine 80 Le pinson d’E... Voltaire 82 À Madame du Châtelet Paul Verlaine 86 Colloque sentimental 90 Notes 94 Chronological Table