of Bournemouth; to Mr. C. L. Hoffrock Griffiths, Town Clerk of Boston; to the Town Clerk of Nottingham; and to Mr. Short of Stickney. We have another and very pleasant sort of acknowledgment to make, to all those relatives of Verlaine, descendants of his friends and others who have helped us during our visits to the Verlaine-Rim- baud country. These kind people have not merely given us photographs and letters rarely and sometimes never before printed; they have more importantly provided direct evidence of Verlaine's movements and behavior at certain periods of his life. This has often enabled us to correct inaccuracies and malicious gossip which have been re- peated in book after book these last sixty years. It is not possible to include the name of every interested and helpful person in these districts, since this would involve printing the names of half the inhabitants in many villages and small towns, but certain acknowl- edgments must be made, in addition to our general indebtedness to those in the Gendarmerie Nationale and the various Maries; Madame Veuve Prévost and Monsieur Jean Imbert of Juniville; Monsieur Jules Rigot and Monsieur and Madame Decloux of Coulommes; Madame Veuve Fricoteau of Roche; Professor Verdelot and Mon- sieur Charles Namur of Rethel; Madame Veuve and Mademoiselle Evrard of Jehonville; Monsieur Grandjean and Monsieur Charles Péture of Bertrix; Monsieur Jean Barras of Paliseul; Monsieur Tante and Monsieur Deshayes of Charleville; and Monsieur Prunis of Reims. Finally, among those who have written about Verlaine we are especially indebted to V. P. Underwood for his indispensable work on Verlaine in England; to Harold Nicolson for his account of Ver- laine's place in French poetry; and to Y. G. le Dantec, whose edition of Verlaine has been a pleasure to use. The bibliography of Verlaine is enormous; so much so that some kind of selection has been essential. In our bibliography, therefore, we have omitted all articles and have confined our list of books al- most entirely to those written by Verlaine's contemporaries. Most biographies of Verlaine include a fairly full account of Rim- baud's life after he and Verlaine parted. We have not done so; partly because it is largely irrelevant to Verlaine's later life, partly because we are now at work on a study of Rimbaud which we hope to com- plete in due course. It is a curious fact that the virtues of this most English of French -xiv- |