Baudelaire suicide letter fetches three times estimated price at auction

French poet’s letter to his mistress, ahead of an unsuccessful attempt to kill himself, aged 24, has sold for €234,000 (£205,000)

An “extraordinary” letter in which the 19th-century French poet Charles Baudelaire tells his lover of his plans to kill himself has sold at auction for three times more than was anticipated.

Baudelaire, author of the poetry collection Les Fleurs du Mal, was 24 when he wrote the letter, on 30 June 1845. In debt, and unsure about his literary prowess, he told his mistress, Jeanne Duval, who inspired much of his poetry, that “by the time you receive this letter, I will be dead”.

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