Publisher's Synopsis
The poems of The Flowers of Evil display a resplendent verbal architecture while introducing us to the darkest side of human nature, that cursed root that, according to Baudelaire, feeds us all. From its first edition in 1857, this "accursed" book exerted an enormous influence on post-romantic poetry and, until well into the 20th century, its importance was comparable to that of Petrarch's Songbook in the Renaissance.