April 9, 1821 – August 31, 1867

What do I care if you are good? Be beautiful, and be sad!

Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du mal (1857) tipped Romanticism on its curly head, dragging beauty back into the big city with all of its dirt, spleen and sin. Benjamin called him "The Writer of Modern Life." It's hard to imagine scabrous poetry, sordid love or Lemony Snicket without him.