Upon its original publication in 1857 Charles Baudelaire's "Les Fleurs
du Mal" or "The Flowers of Evil" was embroiled in controversy. Within a
month of its publication the French authorities brought an action
against the author and the book's publisher claiming that the work was
an insult to public decency. Eventually the French courts would
acknowledge the literary merit of Baudelaire's work but ordered that six
poems in particular should be banned from subsequent publication. The
notoriety caused by this scandal would ultimately work in the author's
favor causing the initial publication to sell out, thus prompting the
publication of another edition. The second edition was published in
1861, it included an additional thirty-five poems, with the exclusion of
the six poems censored by the French government. Finally in 1868 a third
edition was published posthumously.