Symbolist poet, born in Paris. He was sent on a voyage to India, but stopped off at Mauritius. On his return to Paris in 1842, he met Jeanne Duval, a half-caste, who became his mistress and inspiration. He spent much of his time in the studios of Delacroix, Manet, and Daumier. His masterpiece is a collection of poems, Les Fleurs du mal (1857), for which author, printer, and publisher were prosecuted for impropriety in 1864, but which earned the praise of critics and was to exert an influence far into the 20th-c. Later works include Les Paradis artificiels (1860) and Petits Po�mes en prose (1869). His preoccupation with the macabre, the perverted, and the horrid was an essential feature of his work.