Le classique de la litt rature par Charles Baudelaire, Les Fleurs du mal, est publi ici nouveau pour le lecteur enthousiaste. La belle po sie, typique de l' poque moderniste, est inclus sans abr gement. Les six sections sont les suivantes: Spleen et Id al Tableaux Parisiens Le Vin Fleurs du mal R volte La Mort Au moment de la publication initiale dans les ann es 1860, Baudelaire a t accus d'avoir viol les lois de censure. Il a t sommairement condamn une amende, avec six po mes incrimin s ont t retir s de la deuxi me dition. Cependant, ils ont t remplac s par trente-cinq nouveaux po mes, qui cherchaient pr server la profondeur th matique. L' diteur est fier d'apporter le texte original pour le public moderne. Les Fleurs du Mal a b n fici d'un grand nombre d'adaptations pour plus de cent ans, suscitant l'inspiration pour ses audacieuses, versets palpitants.

You Know How a Cat

will bring a mouse it has

caught and lay it at your

feet so each morning I

bring you a poem that

I've written when I woke

up in the night as my tribute

to your beauty &

a promise of my love.

-James Laughlin

Across the ages, cats have provided their adopted humans with companionship, affection, mystery, and innumerable metaphors. Cats raise a mirror up to their beholders; cats endlessly captivate and hypnotise, frustrate and delight. To poets, in particular, these enigmatic creatures are the most delightful and beguiling of muses, as they purr, prowl, hunt, play, meow, and nap, often oblivious to their so-called masters. Cat Poems offers a litter of odes to our beloved felines by some of the greatest poets of all time.

The Flowers of Evil (1857) is a collection of poems by Charles Baudelaire. Translated into English by Cyril Scott in 1909, Baudelaire's poems remain lively and idiosyncratic nearly two centuries after they came into existence. Comprised mostly of sonnets and short lyrics, The Flowers of Evil captures Baudelaire's sense of the changing role of the poet in modern life. Rather than focus on beauty and other ideals, Baudelaire explores the totality of human experience-the good, bad, and ugly of life on earth. "When by the changeless Power of a Supreme Decree / The poet issues forth upon this sorry sphere, / His mother, horrified, and full of blasphemy, / Uplifts her voice to God, who takes compassion on her." In his opening benediction, Baudelaire reverses the typical trope of invoking the muses or celebrating poetry as a divine gift. Instead, he depicts the poet as a being cursed, a "hideous Child of Doom." Childhood for Baudelaire is a subject of particular interest, a time described, in his poem "The Enemy," as "a ravaging storm, / Enlivened at times by a brilliant sun..." The youthful experience of melancholy clearly informs the poet's outlook as an adult: "Time devours our lives, / And the enemy black, which consumeth our hearts / On the blood of our bodies, increases and thrives!" While much of Baudelaire's work deals with darkness and despair, his poems can rise to the heights of celebration and ecstasy, his voice soft and sweet as he invites his sister on a journey to an imagined land of "order and loveliness, / Luxury, calm and voluptuousness." Ultimately, Baudelaire's vision-however irreverent-is guided by truth and morality, which drive him on a torturous path from good to evil, beauty to death, and back. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of The Flowers of Evil is a classic of French literature reimagined for modern readers.