Charles Baudelaire's Fleurs du Mal

Fleursdumal.org is dedicated to the French poet Charles Baudelaire (1821 - 1867), and in particular to Les Fleurs du mal (Flowers of Evil). The definitive online edition of this masterwork of French literature, Fleursdumal.org contains every poem of each edition of Les Fleurs du mal, together with multiple English translations — most of which are exclusive to this site and are now available in digital form for the first time ever.

QuickStart. If you're new to Baudelaire, or if you're not interested in the nuances of the various editions of the Flowers of Evil, you should browse poems using the 1861 Table of Contents. This is the definitive edition of Les Fleurs du mal and contains most everything the casual browser would want to read, except perhaps the "condemned poems" which you can find in Les Épaves (scraps).

The advanced reader of Baudelaire will want to take advantage of the different ways to view the poems that make up Les Fleurs du mal.

» 1857 Table of Contents

This was the first edition of Les Fleurs du mal and contained a hundred poems written in the 1840s and 1850s. (Note that this table of contents reflects the original order of the 1857 edition. However, the French poems to which it links are the later "definitive" versions of the poems published in 1861.)

» 1861 Table of Contents

This second edition contained thirty-five additional poems and the new "Tableaux parisiens" section. However, it lacked the six poems censored from the first edition.

» 1866 Les Épaves

While living in Brussels, Baudelaire and his publisher decided to put out this collection of "scraps" containing a miscellany of poems. Most importantly, it included the six poems censored from the first edition of Les Fleurs du mal, which were illegal to publish in France until the 1940s.

» 1868 Table of Contents

This edition of Les Fleurs du mal was prepared after Baudelaire's death by two of his friends. Modern scholars reject this version because they question some of the changes the friends made. Preference is therefore given to the last version overseen by Baudelaire himself, which was the 1861 edition.

All of the tables of contents give the titles in French, with literal English translations of the titles in smaller type. Please note that Supervert has made every effort to be accurate in handling Baudelaire's poetry. If you happen to notice any errors, regardless how small, please let us know.

Credit. Fleursdumal.org was launched on 1 Feb 2004. The site is a labor of love created and maintained by Supervert. At supervert.com you can find information about Supervert's books Extraterrestrial Sex Fetish and Necrophilia Variations; you can experience Supervert's Shockwave extravaganzas, such as Shockometer and Sex Lingo; you can download electronic texts by the Marquis de Sade, Georges Bataille, Thomas De Quincey, and others; you can participate in surveys about perversion and the influence of computer technology on modern sexuality; and a whole lot more...

Translators. If you are a translator (or publisher) who has translated Baudelaire and you would like to add your work to the site, please contact fleursdumal.org for more information. Please note, however, that fleursdumal.org reserves the unconditional right to reject any submission without explanation. Frankly subjective editorial judgement will be utilized to preserve the quality and integrity of the site content.

Note on translations. The translations of Fleurs du mal included on fleursdumal.org have mostly appeared previously in book form. These are not necessarily the best or the worst translations — though fleursdumal.org is partial to Edna St. Vincent Millay's renderings — but they are ones that the site felt comfortable reproducing rights-wise. If you are a translator and you object to your translations being included here, please contact fleursdumal.org to discuss the issue. However, please bear in mind that fleursdumal.org is obviously not a big-bucks profit-making enterprise but rather a labor of love intended to disseminate Baudelaire's poetry.

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