
The Flowers of Evil
- Reading level
- Plain English
- Price
- Free
About the book
"The Flowers of Evil" by Charles Baudelaire is a volume of French poetry first published in 1857. This groundbreaking collection broke with tradition through suggestive imagery and unusual forms, exploring themes of decadence, eroticism, suffering, and death. Six poems were censored for immorality, and Baudelaire was prosecuted for insulting public decency. Despite—or perhaps because of—its controversy, the work became a cornerstone of the symbolist and modernist movements, profoundly influencing French poetry and earning recognition as a major literary achievement.
- French poetry
Updated September 2026. Public domain in the USA. Text and summary from Project Gutenberg eBook #36098. The Flowers of Evil on Wikipedia.




