The Flowers of Evil (Barnes & Noble Edition): And Other Writings

By Charles Baudelaire

Widely regarded as a masterpiece of nineteenth-century French poetry, Charles Baudelaire’s Les Fleurs du Mal (“The Flowers of Evil”) is celebrated for its daring explorations of the dualities of the human soul in its struggle between good and evil, beauty and debasement, spirit and flesh, as well as for its realistic yet fantastical modern urban landscapes.  The first book-length English translation of Les Fleurs du Mal by Cyril Scott, published in 1911, is presented here, a selection of 46 poems that includes such memorable works as “Le Balcon” (“The Balcony”), “L’Invitation au Voyage” (“Invitation to a Journey”), “A une passante” (“To a Passer-by”), and “Les femmes damnées” (“Condemned Women”). 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Barnes & Noble
• Release date: Sep 1, 2009
• ISBN: 9781411428065

Charles Baudelaire

Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867) was a French poet. Born in Paris, Baudelaire lost his father at a young age. Raised by his mother, he was sent to boarding school in Lyon and completed his education at the Lycée Louis-le-Grand in Paris, where he gained a reputation for frivolous spending and likely contracted several sexually transmitted diseases through his frequent contact with prostitutes. After journeying by sea to Calcutta, India at the behest of his stepfather, Baudelaire returned to Paris and began working on the lyric poems that would eventually become The Flowers of Evil (1857), his most famous work. Around this time, his family placed a hold on his inheritance, hoping to protect Baudelaire from his worst impulses. His mistress Jeanne Duval, a woman of mixed French and African ancestry, was rejected by the poet’s mother, likely leading to Baudelaire’s first known suicide attempt. During the Revolutions of 1848, Baudelaire worked as a journalist for a revolutionary newspaper, but soon abandoned his political interests to focus on his poetry and translations of the works of Thomas De Quincey and Edgar Allan Poe. As an arts critic, he promoted the works of Romantic painter Eugène Delacroix, composer Richard Wagner, poet Théophile Gautier, and painter Édouard Manet. Recognized for his pioneering philosophical and aesthetic views, Baudelaire has earned praise from such artists as Arthur Rimbaud, Stéphane Mallarmé, Marcel Proust, and T. S. Eliot. An embittered recorder of modern decay, Baudelaire was an essential force in revolutionizing poetry, shaping the outlook that would drive the next generation of artists away from Romanticism towards Symbolism, and beyond. Paris Spleen (1869), a posthumous collection of prose poems, is considered one of the nineteenth century’s greatest works of literature.