His Suicide Failed, But His Note? It's Worth a Lot

A suicide letter by one of France's most famous poets has fetched $267,000 on the French auction website Osenat, the BBC reports. Charles Baudelaire, the 19th-century poet revered for his original style of prose-poetry, wrote the note on June 30, 1845, to his lover Jeanne Duval. "By the time you receive this letter, I will be dead," he writes. "I am killing myself because I can no longer live, or bear the burden of falling asleep and waking up again." But his stab to the heart did little damage, and he lived for 22 years more—long enough to write his classic volume Les Fleurs du Mal (The Flowers of Evil). The letter's buyer hasn't been identified, per L'Express. (More auction stories.)