Baudelaire: Collected Essays, 1953 1988

This book of linked essays contains the first critical study of Baudelaire's development as a poet, from his youth onward. It also includes studies of the development of Baudelaire's aesthetic, detailed commentaries on a number of his finest poems, and accounts of three intriguing and crucial "encounters" with notable contemporaries. Three of the essays are previously unpublished and four very recent
the other eleven have been thoroughly updated, revised, and, in some cases, substantially expanded. Together, they constitute a new and important contribution to the understanding and appreciation of Baudelaire's work.