When Flowers of Evil was first published in 1857, the book almost immediately became the subject of an obscenity trial, and for several generations afterward its themes of eroticism, lesbianism, revolt and decay earned the author a reputation for depravity and morbidity. It was not until 1949 that the French courts removed the ban originally imposed on Baudelaire's masterpiece.Today, Flowers of Evil is regarded as the poet's greatest work and perhaps the most influential book of French...
