This book, Illuminations, was most likely written between 1873 and 1875. during the travels of Rimbaud and Verlaine in Belgium, England and Germany. First published in parts in the Parisian literary review La Vogue in 1886. The word illuminations itself was proposed by Verlaine and, according to him, taken from the English language as a designation for the “colored miniatures” that adorned medieval books. “Illuminations” - 42 poems in prose - a kaleidoscope of whimsical and bright paintings, magical landscapes, as if in a fog, the melting figures of lovers, full of bitter memories of childhood and fleeting youth. Written clearly under the influence of Baudelaire's prose passages, "Illuminations" differ fundamentally from them, first of all, in the absence, and perhaps deliberate destruction, of consistency in the presentation of events and smooth transitions from one story to another. This difference makes Rimbaud’s “prose poems” surrealistically rich and highly poetic. The newest translations of these texts (done by Evgeny Sheshin between 2008 and 2015) are intended for a wide range of readers interested in 19th-century French poetry.