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This book is an intensive study of what was by far the most productive year in Baudelaire's literary career. It combines biographical investigation with detailed textual analysis in order to locate the sources of the extraordinary 'explosion' (Baudelaires' own word) of poetic creativity that he experienced during that year, and which resulted, amongst other things, in the writing of his greatest 'Paris poems'. Baudelaire in 1859 differs from 'synchronic' approaches in stressing the need for a reappraisal of his development as man and poet. To this end, Dr Burton devotes a large part of the book and thorough investigation of the fundamental difference between the first (1857) edition of Les Fleurs du mal and its successor of 1861. A picture of Baudelaire emerges, which calls into question the received view of him as a poet committed - in Sartre's words - to a life-long quest for sterility.