"I know these passions and disasters too well," wrote Arthur Rimbaud in 1873, "the rages, the debauches, the madness." When he wrote these words, the great French poet was living in a house in Camden Town with his equally brilliant and volatile partner, Paul Verlaine.
The now decrepit terraced house still holds the simple plaque stating: "The French poets Paul Verlaine and Arthur Rimbaud lived here May-July 1873". These words, however, cannot begin to do justice to the slice of explosive history that lies behind those walls. Since the house is currently on the market, it is a history that is in danger of being lost. Lisa Appignanesi, one of the forefront writers leading a campaign to save the Camden house, explains how, "it would be wonderful to insert their presence on to the London literary map, and to have a historical site that also thinks about the values of transgression".
Rimbaud and Verlaine, she explains, "were both transgressive writers who influenced not only modernism but also the young for many generations, including the world of rock and pop". Indeed. Picasso, Andr Breton, Jean Cocteau, Allen Ginsberg, Bob Dylan and Jim Morrison have all named Rimbaud as an influence.
