The poems of The Flowers of Evil were written in Paris at a time of revolution and accelerating change – the beginning of mass culture, the rise of consumerism and the middle-class, the radical redevelopment of the city by Haussmann – and they provide many parallels with the malaise and uncertainties of contemporary capitalist societies. Jan Owen’s masterly translation captures all of this in a selection that includes many of Baudelaire’s best known poems – including those banned from 1857 edition – as well as some less familiar ones, with the volume leading up to his great long poem, ‘The Voyage’, and finishing with the much-loved sonnet ‘Meditation’.