Before publishing the sensuous and scandalous poems of Les Fleurs du Mal, Charles Baudelaire (1821-67) had already earned respect as a forthright and witty critic of art and literature. This stimulating selection of criticism reveals him as a worshipper at the altar of beauty, illuminating his belief that the pursuit of this ideal must be paramount in artistic expression. Reviews of exhibitions discuss works by great painters such as Delacroix and Ingres in fascinating detail, and 'Of Virtuous Plays and Novels' sees Baudelaire as an avenging angel in defence of true art. Writings on Poe, Flaubert and Gautier evoke a profound understanding of fellow artists, while his single excursion into musical criticism, 'Richard Wagner and Tannhauser in Paris', displays an incisive awareness of the magical power of suggestion in music.

Charles Pierre Baudelaire (1821-67) was a French poet. His most famous work Les Fleurs du mal (The Flowers of Evil) is included in this volume in both French and English. It describes the changing nature of beauty in modern industrialising Paris. Baudelaire's style of prose-poetry was highly original and influenced many poets who drew on his work.

In both his life and his poetry, Baudelaire pushed the accepted limits of his time. His dissolute bohemian life was as shocking to his nineteenth-century readers as his poetry. Writing in classical style but with brutal honesty, Baudelaire laid bare human suffering, aspirations, and perversions.