Which French poet and translator popularized Poe's works in Europe?

Charles Baudelaire popularized Poe’s works in Europe through his influential French translations and critical writing about the American author. Baudelaire discovered Poe in the early 1840s and recognized a strong kinship between Poe’s dark imagination, meticulous technique, and own literary concerns.

Baudelaire translated many of Poe’s tales into French, including stories later collected in volumes such as Histoires extraordinaires and Nouvelles histoires extraordinaires. His versions introduced Poe to a broad French readership and helped establish Poe’s European reputation.

The connection was more than simple translation: Baudelaire also wrote essays defending Poe’s methods and character against hostile or dismissive criticism. His advocacy influenced major French writers, including Stéphane Mallarmé and Paul Verlaine. Victor Hugo was an important French literary figure, but he did not play the same central role in bringing Poe’s fiction to European readers.