In October 1879, Mallarme's eight year old son Anatole died after months of illness. Mallarme's letters tell nothing of the 210 sheets of pencilled notes towards a poem about this death, and they did not appear in his lifetime. When first published in 1961, they revealed a side of the French poet hitherto largely unknown. Even now it disturbs the general image of the poet as a man of resolute impersonality and detachment.

For Anatole's Tomb is among the most ambitious works Mallarme attempted, and for all its fragmentation remains a complete and moving reading experience. The en-face translation, based on a recent text established in the Pleiade Mallarme, is preceded by a substantial introduction.