Audiobook 49 Poems from The Flowers of Evil by Baudelaire. Les Fleurs du mal, in English The Flowers of Evil, is a volume of French poetry by Charles Baudelaire. First published in 1857, it played an essential role in the symbolist and modernist movements. The poems deal with themes relating to decadence and eroticism. Baudelaire dedicated the book to the poet Théophile Gautier, describing him as a parfait magicien des lettres françaises ("a perfect magician of French letters").