Publisher's Synopsis
This opulent illustrated edition of Charles Baudelaire's seminal collection of poetry has been specially produced to celebrate the bicentenary of the poet's birth. Unique in its genre, it will appeal especially to collectors of fine books. As we celebrate the bicentenary of his birth, Baudelaire's poetry continues to fascinate readers not just in his native France but throughout the world. The Flowers of Evil (Les Fleurs du mal) is now considered to be a major work of modern poetry, breaking with a romanticism which, for half a century, had praised nature to the point of trivializing it. Baudelaire's vision aspired to an ideal world, the path to which is paved with suffering and misfortune, a vision that exercised a considerable influence on later poets such as Paul Verlaine, Arthur Rimbaud, Stéphane Mallarmé and T. S. Eliot.
