Taking its inspiration from Shakespeare's idea of the 'seven ages' of a human life, this anthology brings together the poems in English. Beginning with babies, it is divided into sections on childhood, growing up, making a living and making love, family life, getting older, and approaching death, ending with poems of mourning and commemoration.

In eighteenth-century France there lived a man Jean-Baptiste Grenouille who was one of the most gifted and abominable personages in an era that knew no lack of gifted and abominable personages.

Tells of the career of a hot-blooded middle-class politician whose sexual energies bring him much success with women.