Berlin

Jules Laforgue, who has been called the "French Keats" and whose work greatly influenced T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound and James Joyce, went to Berlin in 1881 as French reader to the Empress Augusta, a descendent of Catherine the Great. Written shortly before his death from tuberculosis at age 27, Berlin, la cour et la ville was not published until 1922 and is still little known in France. This first complete English translation of an important lost work is a brilliant example of what Jacques Barzun has called the poet's "visual reportage". It presents a precise picture of what everyday life was like in Berlin in the 1880's. Like his friend Seurat, Laforgue shows us what people did, what they wore, what they ate, what they saw and heard. He paints memorable portraits of the leading court personalities and pays special attention to the Prussian military, the power of which permeated every aspect of life.