Charles Baudelaire

Charles Baudelaire was born in Paris in 1821, and the city runs through everything he wrote. His father died when he was a boy, and he never forgave his mother for remarrying an army officer he resented for the rest of his life. Sent on a voyage toward India as a young man, he turned back early, but the sea and far-off ports stayed in his imagination. Back in Paris he burned through an inheritance and ran up debts. He lived among artists, models, and outsiders.