Baudelaire, Charles: French poet and critic of the 19th century, well known for his dark themes of lust, decay and depravity. His most famous work, Les Fleurs du Mal, propelled Baudelaire into notoriety, praised by fellow authors as ‘injecting new life into Romanticism’. Translating the works of Edgar Allan Poe proved to be one of his major influences; Baudelaire claimed him to be a ‘twin soul’.