Messages 1-2

Book title: The Letters 1-2 Author: Charles Baudelaire Publisher: Al-Jamal Publications Overview: Every publisher of correspondence tends to become a biographer and defend their interests, disregarding the interests of others. Are we compelled here, to realize the purpose of this book, to first seek to uncover its negative aspects? Should we prove that Baudelaire's correspondence lacks the variety of George Sand's letters and their density, and that, unlike Saint-Bov's correspondence, it is not the literary record that describes half a century, and that it does not serve as a unique reference for understanding the poet's works as Zola's letters about human comedy. And that it does not document, like Mermy's correspondence, political and social news, and that it does not offer, like Flaubert's letters about the era, man, and art, ideas worthy of an ethical writer, and that it does not possess the biting mystery characteristic of Stendhal's letters nor express the splendid disdain we sense in Fénelon's letters, nor the passionate delirium or astonishing indifference overflowing from Chateaubriand's letters. And that it does not give the satisfying image of the self, reflected in Victor Hugo's letters? The letter writer loves to write them, and isn't Baudelaire the one who says about himself that he is "not skilled" at writing them? And "a letter costs me more to write than a book," or he writes it in his imagination, which delays its release even more. The pleasure of writing a letter stems from a clear conscience, nourished by the small vanity we feel in giving awareness to an unexpected event for someone who still does not know it.