Discovering Baudelaire, An Overview

I have too much to say on the topic of:

1. My trips to random bookstores I drive by, decide to visit, and eventually buy something;
2. Discovering a specific artifact;
3. Doing research on the artifact;
4. Consuming the artifact;
5. and, Having my World View adjusted by the artifact.

This is the "artifact" of which I speak:

I'd heard of Baudelaire, but I knew virtually nothing about him. I'd never heard of Theophile Gautier.

I'm currently deeply involved in putting together a series of blog posts about this tiny collection of essays (just two, with an introduction--it's barely 120 pages in total)(the titular "Poem of Hashish" is not a poem, but an essay).

I never knew this tiny collection even existed, and it nearly didn't: this pairing of contemporaries was only put together in the 1960s, about a hundred years after each was published, and a hundred-and-fifteen years after the events that was being written about occurred, and only because the times seemed to call for it.

Both Gautier and Baudelaire were amazing writers...