Charles Baudelaire

Charles Pierre Baudelaire was born in Paris; his father died when he was five, and his mother's remarriage to Colonel Aupick deeply marked him.

Baudelaire was expelled from the prestigious Paris lycée for refusing to give up a note passed by a classmate, though he later passed his baccalauréat.

Baudelaire's stepfather sent him on a voyage to Calcutta to reform his bohemian habits, but he left the ship at Réunion and Mauritius; the tropics left lasting images in his poetry.

Baudelaire began a long, turbulent liaison with the actress and dancer Jeanne Duval, the inspiration for the 'Black Venus' cycle of his poems.

Baudelaire's reviews of the Salons of 1845 and 1846 established him as a penetrating art critic and champion of Eugène Delacroix.

Baudelaire published Histoires extraordinaires, the first of his celebrated volumes of Poe translations that introduced the American writer to France.

Baudelaire's poetry collection Les Fleurs du mal appeared on 25 June 1857 and became one of the most influential poetry volumes of the century.

Baudelaire and his publisher were fined for outrage to public decency, and six poems were ordered suppressed from Les Fleurs du mal.

Beset by debts and declining health, Baudelaire moved to Brussels, where he suffered a major stroke in 1866 that left him paralyzed and aphasic.

Baudelaire died in Paris at the age of 46 after more than a year of paralysis, and was buried in Montparnasse Cemetery.