If you have never heard of Charles Baudelaire, now you have. What have you been missing? Well, order this book and you will see that you are missing the preeminant masterpiece of a man with a complete mastery of his language. There are points of aching emotion, periods of baudy, lustful couplings, raw, exposed pain and suffering, but underneath it all is one of the greatest minds to ever put quill to parchment. John-Paul Sartre explains Baudelaire as: "man of shadows, opium addict, dandy, frigid disciple of voulpte and the greatest lyric poet of his age". Mr. Sartre was indeed correct. This version of Flowers of Evil should be required in the library of every disillusioned, but not defeated, weary, but eager, truth seeking dreamer.