Charles Baudelaire was born in Paris on April 9, 1821, and was six years old when his father died. His mother's swift marriage to Jacques Aupick (1828) destroyed the quiet life the boy was accustomed to. When Colonel Aupick was appointed chief of staff, the family moved to Lyon (1832) and then returned to Paris (1836). After attending a boarding school in Lyon, he did the same in Paris, where he entered the Collège Louis-le-Grand, from which he was expelled for indiscipline in 1839. This did not prevent him from obtaining his baccalaureate degree that same year. The profession of literature was the only thing that attracted him. His excessive brilliance and tumultuous life worried his family, who sent him on a trip around the world to 'gain wisdom and reason' (1842). After a stop on the islands of Mauritius and Bourbon, he escaped from the captain entrusted to him and returned to France after a side trip to India (1842). He became involved with Jeanne Duval, his great love, and met Balzac, Nerval, Théophile Gautier, and Théodore de Banville. In 1857, the collection 'Les Fleurs du mal' (The Flowers of Evil) was published, of which six poems were banned by the judiciary. His health was very fragile, but his literary activity did not slow down. He published a pamphlet on 'Théophile Gautier,' the book 'Artificial Paradises,' 'Aesthetic Curiosities' (1860), 'Paris Spleen,' and 'Romantic Art,' (1836). During a visit to Belgium, his health and pain worsened (1866). His mother brought him back to France, and he died in Paris on August 31, 1867.

• Publishing house: Dar Al Farabi for Publishing & Distribution
• Number of Pages: 248
• Year of publication: 2012
• ISBN: 9789953718057