Les fleurs du mal

Description

Rediscover Charles Baudelaire's major poetic work in a magnificent bound edition, featuring the 1861 edition accompanied by the 'Condemned Pieces'. The Poet is like the prince of the clouds Who haunts the storm and laughs at the archer; Exiled on the ground amid the jeers, His giant wings prevent him from walking. In 1857, the publication of Les Fleurs du Mal caused a scandal, and a lawsuit for 'offence to public morality and decency' forced Charles Baudelaire to remove poems from the collection. In 1861, a new edition gave Les Fleurs du Mal the structure we know today. This bound edition restores it and adds the 'Condemned Pieces', echoing the poet's words in his 'Epigraph for a Condemned Book': Peaceful and bucolic reader, Sober and naïve man of good character, Throw away this Saturnian book [...] But if, without letting yourself be charmed, Your eye knows how to plunge into the abyss, Read me, to learn to love me.