Charles Baudelaire is one of the key names in French literature of the 19th century. His “Flowers of Evil” became a reference book in Russia, in a sense, determining the direction in which Russian literature began to develop in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. His life, full of passions, hobbies and disappointments, is another work of art that Baudelaire left us. The author of the book, Henri Troyat (real name Lev Tarasov), is the oldest and generally recognized master of the biographical genre; he has written numerous biographies of literary and artistic figures, and also the largest historical characters of the 18th–20th centuries.